


Sunday Morning

by tuppenny



Series: Growing Together [1]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: (Race & Albert & Elmer & Sniper & Romeo & Mush & Specs), (they might graduate into full-fledged characters later), F/M, also token appearances by other newsies, if you think differently please let me know and I will be happy to tag it!, oh also Weasel & Morris Delancey, there's a short fight in Ch. 4 but I don't think the violence is graphic enough to warrant a warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-09 11:57:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11104119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/pseuds/tuppenny
Summary: The financial gap between Katherine and Jack rears its ugly head. Jack's got to confront his pride and Katherine has to confront her stubbornness if they're going to make this work.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Katherine wants to move this week's Saturday date night to Sunday afternoon and Jack hopes that whatever she wants to do isn't too expensive.

Saturday date night. That was the routine. After a long week of illustrating stories and chasing down scoops, both Jack and Katherine agreed that spending time together was the perfect end of the week pick-me-up. And with the large Sunday edition in the bag and a thin Monday edition mostly already written and typeset, Saturday night was the perfect time to reconnect. Which is why Jack was so surprised when Katherine asked if they could move Saturday date night to Sunday afternoon instead.  


“But we ain’t a Sunday afternoon couple, Ace, we’s a Saturday night couple!”  


“It’s just one Sunday, Jack, it’s not like I’m asking you to walk on your hands instead of your feet from now on.”  


“Now that I could do,” Jack muttered, scratching at the rough collar of his freshly starched shirt. Much as he liked having clean outfits for a change, he wished his new clothes weren’t so darn scratchy. Katherine had insisted on taking him shopping for professional duds to wear to his new job at _The World_ , helping him select a range of stiff-collared button-downs in various shades of blue, two pairs of wool pants, two single-breasted waistcoats, one pair of shiny but serviceable boots, a brown suit jacket, and three whole neckties. He tried to argue with her about all of this, his protests ranging from, “But I got only one neck, what do I need three ties for?” to “The fellas at the paper will think I’m putting on airs, they know I’m not one of ‘em,” but Katherine wouldn’t budge. “Clothes make the man when it comes to business, Jack Kelly, and wearing the right clothes will convince both you and the others that you belong there.” Jack knew when he was beat, but he was at least able to make Katherine wait outside when he purchased the clothes –on the pretense of getting her a surprise present that she oughtn’t to spoil by watching him buy it– so she couldn’t see that he had to buy the clothes on credit.  


Money was a touchy subject between them; try as she might, Katherine simply had no framework for understanding how much a penny was worth to Jack, and Jack hated that he couldn’t afford to spend money on Katherine the way he wanted to. “My treat,” she’d say, inviting him to the ice cream parlor or the skating rink, and Jack would bluster for a bit before finally letting her pay and feeling terrible as she did so.  


“A man’s s’posed to take care of his lady,” he lamented to Crutchie one early morning while the two of them were getting ready for work. “I just hate that she always has to be the one taking care of me.”  


“I don’t think she minds, Jack,” said Crutchie, sitting down to put on his boots. “Say, give me a hand with these laces, wouldja?”  


“No, she don’t mind…. And that kinda makes it worse.” Jack squatted to lace up the boot on Crutchie’s bum leg. “It’s like it’s never even crossed her mind that I could afford to treat her right." Done with the laces, Jack smacked the bottom of Crutchie’s boot. “I mean, she don’t even ask to go Dutch! She don’t even bother to pretend like I could pay for my own stuff.”  


“Well, you can’t, can you?”  


Jack glared at his friend. “Do me a favor and stop being reasonable, yeah?”  


“Sure thing, Jackie. Besides, there goes the circulation bell, so I’m off. Have fun moping all by your lonesome at your fancy newspaper job!” Crutchie grinned impishly and inched down the rooftop ladder.  


Of course Crutchie was right that Katherine didn’t mind. In fact, she didn’t even think about it. But Jack did. Normally he was able to head off Katherine’s more expensive date suggestions before the money issue came up; as long as he came to Saturday nights prepared with a brilliant contingency counterplan and plenty of enthusiasm for it, she was happy to go along with what he suggested. It was getting exhausting, though, having to dissuade her from going to the symphony and the theater and other things, too, things he really would’ve loved to go to, like the horse races over at the Aqueduct, the Central Park Menagerie, and the Brooklyn Museum. And now she wanted to switch date night to Sunday afternoon? Nothing cheap happened on Sunday—even church had a collection plate. Smirking, Jack thought about how if he stole the collection money from St. Mark’s then he could probably afford whatever it was that Katherine wanted to do, but, criminal record notwithstanding, Jack wasn’t a thief. Not that kind of thief, anyway; Katherine often teased him about how he’d happily steal a girl’s heart to sell a paper. He always responded that it was lucky for her that he was so good at it, otherwise she’d probably be stepping out with some crusty old newspaper magnate’s buttoned-up son rather than the dashing Jack Kelly.  


“Oh come on, it’s just one day’s difference, and you’re usually so good at being spontaneous,” Katherine pleaded.  


“Spon— what? Ace, come on, you know I ain’t read the dictionary like you.”  


“Spur of the moment, seat of your pants, completely unplanned. Actually,” she said, eyeing him up and down, “Spontaneous could be your middle name.”  


“Yeah, well, it’s Francis.” Jack shrugged. “Easier for my folks to spell.”  


“Or the priest said it wrong at the baptism and you got stuck with it.”  


“Also possible. Ya never can tell with priests. But it musta happened to you, too, explains how you got stuck being Katherine Ethel.” Jack winked. “Be honest with me, though, are you sure you want to swap a whole long, starry night at my penthouse for one lousy afternoon? You ain’t just trying to get out of spending time with me, are ya?”  


“Seriously, Jack, just this once? Please? I wouldn’t keep asking unless I really wanted this, you know that.”  


“Alright, alright. If my girl’s happy, I’m happy,” he said, leaning in for a kiss.  


Katherine smiled as his lips met hers. “I’m happy,” she said, speaking in the short moments between Jack’s soft kisses. “I’m happy whenever I’m with you, Jack Kelly,” she whispered, moving her hands to the back of his neck and sighing as he caressed her cheek with his ink-stained fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been bouncing around in my head for a couple of weeks now, so I know where it's going... just have to sit down and write it. Kudos and comments will probably make me write faster, should you feel so inclined! ;) 
> 
> Either way, thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack shocks the newsies into being quiet for once, and Crutchie talks some sense into his ~~best friend~~ brother.

Jack and Crutchie rose at dawn that Sunday, and Jack felt himself stand a little taller as he buttoned up his worn linen shirt and straightened his faded newsboy’s cap. Starched shirts and stiff collars were all very well for a newspaper office, but he loved waking up on Sunday morning and getting to be the Jack Kelly he was used to being, the Jack Kelly who knew he was good at his job, the Jack Kelly whose accent and behavior made money instead of making his coworkers smirk. “Ready to sell some papes, Crutchie?”

The shorter boy beamed and nodded, his face bathed in soft copper light. Jack’s heart leapt to see that his friend’s bruises from the Refuge had finally healed. Now if only his leg would do the same…. Crutchie’s voice broke him out of his reverie. “Nothin’ better than selling papes on a Sunday, people is always easier to guilt when they’s got church on their minds.” 

“Especially the ladies all gussied up in fancy dresses and hats they paid too much for. I loves meetin’ ‘em on the street right when they feels bad about stiffin’ God on the money they owes him.” Jack punched his friend in the arm. “Well, let’s get to it—here, lemme help ya down.”

The two boys shimmied down the ladder into the Newsboys’ Lodging House, where they were quickly drawn into the other newsies’ usual morning hijinks. Jack yelped as Sniper snapped his arm with the end of a wet towel intended for Buttons, and Crutchie only narrowly missed being bowled over by Race, who was chasing a barefooted Albert down the stairs while yelling, “Penny cigars is one thing, but that there is a _Corona_! Give it back, ya lousy, no-good…”

“This place ain’t a Lodging House, it’s a madhouse,” Jack grumbled, rubbing his arm. 

“Or a roughhouse!” Said Crutchie, shoving Jack sideways. 

“Ain’t that the truth,” the older boy said, chuckling as Specs galloped past them in his socks while giving Elmer a piggyback ride. Elmer, in turn, was whirling his cap over his head and whooping loudly enough to bring down the roof. “C’mon, Crutchie, let’s go.” Jack checked each dormitory room they passed on their way downstairs, yelling at any stragglers he saw still getting dressed or, worse yet, still in bed. “Romeo! Mush! Hustle up! Ol’ Crutchie and I are gonna beat ya there, and we ain’t savin’ ya any papes!” 

“Five more minutes, Jack, I’s dreamin’ about eatin’ apple pie,” Mush groaned, pulling his threadbare blanket over his head in a vain attempt to block out the growing daylight and the noise of far too many rowdy newsies.

“Ya can’t get apples in the summer, lazybones, they ain’t ripe until fall,” said Romeo, jumping onto the foot of Mush’s bunk. “Unless you’re stupid enough to eat the little green ones right offa the trees, an’ I bet you are,” he added, bouncing up and down on Mush’s creaky mattress until the tired newsie finally rolled out of bed. As soon as he’d had time to clear the sleep from his eyes, he tackled Romeo to the floor. 

“Dreams don’t hafta be realistic, dummy! That’s why they’s called dreams!”

Jack grinned. “I tell ya, Crutchie, if the fellas in the newsroom had half this much spark, they’d write killer headlines every day.” The two boys made their way to the circulation office, Jack’s arm slung around Crutchie’s shoulder as they laughed and traded tall tales about their best fake headlines. 

When they arrived, Weisel the Weasel was waiting by the stacks of freshly printed papers and grousing at the Delancey brothers, as usual. Jack gave him a friendly wave. “Hey Weasel! Didja miss me this week?” 

The man spun around, his ears turning bright red as he spotted Jack. “I’m never gonna get rid of you, am I, boy? What’s wrong with your snooty doodling job that ya still want to hang around here?” 

“What, and miss the joy of seein’ your sweet face every Sunday? You’re breakin’ my heart, Weasel. I thought we had somethin’ special.”

“Uh huh,” Weisel muttered, and motioned to Morris Delancey. “A hundred an' fifty papes for the smartass, Morris. And that’s ninety cents, Jack, not a lousy thirty-six. We ain’t running a discount paper joint here.”

“I want sixty, not a hundred an' fifty.”

Weisel froze. A hush settled over the newsies lined up behind Jack. Crutchie made a sort of strangled noise of protest, which, when Jack turned to glare at him, he tried –but failed– to disguise as a sneeze.

“Ya heard me, Weasel, sixty papes.”

“Jack, are ya sick?” Crutchie whispered a little too loudly.

“Naw, I ain’t sick,” he said, whipping around to face the long line of silent newsies. “And whaddya think you’s lookin’ at? A man doesn’t hafta buy papes he don’t wanna buy. I got a hot date this afternoon, is all, so I ain’t got the time to shift a hundred an' fifty papes.”

The other boys all relaxed and started shoving each other again, muttering things like, “I knew he weren’t sick, Jack’s never sick,” “I can’t believe you thought he was slipping, I never did,” “You’s a fool, thinkin’ Jack didn’t want more papes. He’d want ‘em if he had the time to sell ‘em, Jack’s the best in the business, still is.”

Jack snatched the papers out of Morris’ hands. “Bet you ain’t had a date in years, huh, Morris?”

“Joke’s on you, Jack, I had one just last week.”

“Aw, Morris,” said Jack, shaking his head sadly, “You know splittin' a sandwich with your brother don’t count.” Dodging the boy’s swipe at his head, Jack jogged over to the middle of the square and waited for the rest of the newsies to buy their papers.

“Say,” said Crutchie, limping his way over to Jack, “I thought your dates with Katherine were on Saturday nights, not Sunday afternoons.”

“That’s what _I_ said!” Jack threw up his hands and looked to the heavens, as if asking God to shield him from headstrong girls who change their established routine once in a blue moon. “But Katherine really wants to go to this…” Jack paused, thought a moment, and scratched his head. “Uh… actually, I don’t know what she wants to go to.”

“It must be pretty important if she asked you to give up your Sunday paper income, especially since you’re still payin’ off those new clothes,” said Crutchie. 

“Urmhrmm…” Jack suddenly realized that his boots needed to be retied. It was really quite urgent, the laces were uneven and gave off a general air of sloppiness and….

“You haven’t told her you’re still sellin’ papes, have you.” 

“Uhhhhh…”

Crutchie clapped his flustered friend on the shoulder. “I get it, Jack, I do, but ya really oughta tell her.”

“If I don’t have to, I’m not gonna. She already thinks I make less than nothing, and I don’t want her knowing I work two jobs to do it.”

Crutchie shrugged. “It’s your funeral, but ya oughta say somethin’. I ain’t the one with a girl, but even I know relationships don’t work on lies.”

Jack bristled. “I ain’t lyin’, I’m just… not tellin’ her everything.”

“Right, like the way she just… didn’t tell you everything about her father. That worked out well, huh?” 

“Well, I mean, we’re together now, so yeah, I’d say it did,” he snapped back. Crutchie’s only response was to fold his arms and raise an eyebrow. Jack held out for a few moments, but then he hung his head, sighed, and rubbed his forehead. “I thought I toldja to stop being reasonable.” 

“Yeah, but that was four days ago,” Crutchie said. “By now I’ve forgotten all the dumb stuff ya said back on Wednesday. I only remembers the dumb stuff ya said today. And there’s been a lot of it.” 

“Alright, alright. Ya got me. I’ll tell her… eventually.” 

Crutchie nodded and patted Jack on the back. “How’s about we go sell some papes, Jackie Boy?” 

“You got it, boss.” They stood up together, and, in a raucous burst of hooting and hollering, Jack and his band of irrepressible newsboys scattered out onto the streets of Lower Manhattan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really wanted to fit Davey into this somehow, because he and Les could totally sell papers on Sundays even after they went back to school, but I couldn't make it fit this time around. I guess they had a lot of homework or household chores in this chapter or something. Maybe they'll appear later? (I hope so.) Stay tuned!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we discover Katherine's idea of a good time, and Jack makes fun of a butler.

Selling sixty papers took the fabled Jack Kelly hardly any time at all, even though he was so antsy about his unusual date with Katherine and the prospect of telling her he hadn’t given up selling papes that his sales pitch lacked its usual gusto. He even had time to head back to the lodging house and change into a crisp white shirt, one that Katherine particularly liked on him. He knocked on the door of the Pulitzer’s rented residence at precisely 1pm and bounced lightly on his toes while he waited for the butler to open the door. 

“Hiya, Wilson! Love that penguin look, suits ya perfectly.” The butler was not impressed, but Jack persisted. “You know, since you got that big beak and all.” He smirked at the long-suffering butler and scratched his own nose, which was undeniably more proportional than poor Wilson’s. Jack was normally polite to honest men who worked hard for a living, even ones who looked like exotic waterfowl, but Wilson never invited Jack in until he was told to, so the newsboy had taken to sassing him every chance he got. Beaming like a choirboy, he leaned against the doorframe. “Katherine here?”

“Jack? Is that you?” Katherine clattered down the stairs in her high-heeled boots and swept to the doorway, her glossy red hair tumbling over her shoulders and making Jack’s breath catch. “Thank you, Mr. Wilson. I’ll be back before dusk. If my father asks, tell him that yes, he can expect me for dinner.”

“Of course, Miss Pulitzer,” said Wilson, bowing low.

The two journalists pattered down the concrete steps leading up to the Pulitzers’ doorway, and Jack’s hand found Katherine’s as they entered the street. “You annoyed him again, didn’t you,” she said, her lips pursed in displeasure. 

“He makes it so hard not to,” Jack protested. “Plus, he started it. Refusing to let me in unless you make him.”

“Is he _still_ doing that? Honestly, I must have told the man a thousand times… Well, Scheherazade lasted a thousand and one nights, surely I can summon up the patience to ask my grumpy old butler one more time if he would please let my boyfriend into my house.”

“Your boyfriend, huh?” Jack’s eyes sparkled.

“We’ve been through this, you goof,” Katherine rolled her eyes, but Jack could tell she was secretly amused.

“Yeah, but I never gets tired of hearing it. You’s my girlfriend, Ace, how’s about that? Jack and Katherine, sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I—hey!” Katherine interrupted him by planting a big, wet kiss on his cheek, and now she was laughing, her head thrown back in joy. He grinned, too, and rubbed her spit and lipstick off of his face. His fingers itched for a piece of charcoal and some crisp, white paper—just look at this beautiful, brilliant girl. He was going to draw her like this as soon as he got back to the rooftop, no question. How in the world had he gotten so lucky?

“So, where’re we goin’ today?”

“Oh, Jack, Maud Wood Park is speaking at Barnard College this afternoon!” Her eyes gleamed with excitement. “Can you believe it? She was the youngest delegate at this year’s National American Woman Suffrage Association Convention, and when she realized that, she made it her mission to get other younger women involved in the cause, too!” Katherine was practically skipping down 72nd street. “So she and Inez Haynes Irwin founded this organization called the College Equal Suffrage League, and they’re traveling to campuses all over the country giving speeches to young women about what we can do to fight for women’s suffrage!” 

Jack blinked. “Well ain’t that the darndest thing. Women voting! Seems kinda stupid they can’t vote already, if ya ask me. I’d sure rather you an’ Miss Medda had the vote insteada that lousy Weasel.”

“I knew you’d see it that way,” Katherine was just about floating now, borne aloft by her giddiness at seeing Maud Wood Park, participating in a rally, and walking hand in hand with the one and only Jack Kelly. “Father doesn’t, of course, but then he’s old and getting older, and I have to grant that he _has_ made peace with my being a journalist, and of course he’s stopped fussing about you, too, so who knows, maybe he’ll come around in a few years.” 

Jack laughed. “If he’s stopped fussing about me, then anything’s possible. You don’t need to worry about women’s suffrage, that’s in the bag. Heck, I bet that by the time we’re your pop’s age, we’ll have world peace and drink coffee with sugar at every meal, too.” 

Katherine swatted him playfully. “It’s not that big a miracle, he sees an awful lot of himself in you. Pulled himself up by his bootstraps and all that—regular Horatio Algers, the both of you.” 

“Yeah, well, I’m still pullin’ on my bootstraps, and his shoes are too fancy to even have bootstraps anymore. But okay.” Jack wasn’t thrilled at being likened to Pulitzer, but if that’s what it took for the publishing giant to stop grimacing every time Jack so much as looked at Katherine, he’d live. 

Katherine nudged him sideways. “I like a man with bootstraps, Jack Kelly, and don’t you forget it.” 

He smiled, and they walked the rest of the way to Barnard College mostly in companionable silence, stopping only to giggle at particularly outlandish churchgoing hats being worn by the women on promenade in Central Park. 

“I think that woman musta killed and skinned Wilson to make her hat,” Jack whispered, pointing out a particularly large number that was adorned with large, white ostrich feathers and trimmed with jet-black bows. 

“Serves him right for not letting you in,” said Katherine. “He’s a better hat than butler, if you ask me. And that’s a hideous hat.”

Jack snickered. 

When they reached Barnard, a large crowd had already gathered in front of the Broadway entrance to the college. It was taking a while for everyone to filter through the gated entryway, so Jack busied himself with admiring the intricate scrollwork on the gates and pestering Katherine about going to college, because he knew she wanted to, and wasn’t this place beautiful, and he could come say hello and they could eat picnic lunches on campus and throw crumbs to the sparrows. As a result, both he and she were far too distracted to notice that two college girls, dressed all in white and wearing wide-brimmed sunhats, were soliciting donations from everyone arriving for the rally. It wasn’t until they reached the iron gates themselves that Jack saw what was happening, and by then it was too late to avoid a scene. 

“Donate forty cents to support the cause, sir? Twenty for you, twenty for the lady?”

“What, the rally ain’t free?”

“Oh, it’s free, sir, we’re just requesting that every attendee donate twenty cents to help us cover Miss Park’s travel expenses. We’re also hoping to gather the funds to start our own chapter of the College Equal Suffrage League. So you see,” she said, smiling brightly, “It goes to a good cause.”

Jack wanted to tell this proper little sophomore that he thought his being able to afford a square meal once a day was a better cause, but instead he said, “So it ain’t free.”

“No, no, it’s free, sir, it’s just that a donation is highly encouraged.”

Jack turned to Katherine. “Are you gettin’ this? I gotta pay this gal forty cents or everyone here is gonna give us dirty looks for not supportin’ women.” 

“Actually, we’re already giving you dirty looks for holding up the line,” called a tall, middle-aged woman from the line that had backed up behind Jack. “Just like a man, wasting other people’s time to complain about every little way the world doesn’t suit him.”

“Yeah,” yelled a pale-skinned teenager with blue ribbons in her hair. “Stop whining and pay up, cheapskate! Your girl deserves better than you, that much is obvious.”

Jack had started to reach into his pockets to pull out the money he’d made that morning, but as soon as the girl finished speaking, he froze. If a man had said that to him, Jack would’ve already given him a matching pair of shiners. As it was, it took every fiber of his self control to stand his ground and not run straight back to Lower Manhattan, where all of the girls competed to get his attention and where people knew how damn hard he had to work to make forty cents. 

By now, Katherine had had time to find her purse, and she jammed forty cents into the baffled college girl’s outstretched palm. Turning around, she locked eyes with the tall woman and then with the teenager. “How dare you! We’re trying to convince people that women are rational, intelligent beings who can be trusted with the vote, and here you two can’t wait in a line for thirty seconds before making judgments about other people and their relationships. You’re a disgrace to the cause, and I won’t stand to be in the same place as either of you.” She grabbed Jack’s hand and pulled him so close to her side that their hips touched. He stared ahead, stone-faced, while she continued scolding the two women. “And furthermore, if anyone here doesn’t deserve someone, it’s _you_. You’d be lucky to find a man _half_ as smart and kind and selfless as Jack, and even if you _were_ lucky enough to find one, you wouldn’t deserve him.” Her eyes flashed, and although the middle-aged woman had the grace to look ashamed, the teenager opened her mouth to fight back. Katherine didn’t give her a chance, though, because as soon as she had finished speaking, she yanked Jack back towards Broadway. “Come on, Jack, let’s go. I refuse to spend another moment breathing the same air as those ill-mannered harridans.”

Jack allowed himself to be dragged along, neither of them saying a word, until they’d entered the relative quiet of Riverside Park. Katherine turned to face him then. “Jack, I—”

He didn’t give her the chance to finish. “I can fight my own battles, Katherine. I don’t—ya didn’t need—I didn’t _ask_ ya to do that!”

“Noooo, and that’s kind of the point. I _wanted_ to do that. They were completely wrong about you and me, and I was not going to stand there and listen to it!”

But Jack wasn’t standing and listening to Katherine now. He’d started pacing back and forth, his arms raised and hands pressing so hard on his head that his newsboy cap was digging into his scalp. “Didja hear what they wanted? Forty whole cents? Crutchie and I could eat like kings for a _week_ on forty whole cents! For two weeks, more’s like! And you– you just _handed_ it to them like it was _nothin_ ’!” 

He finally stopped pacing and looked back at Katherine. For once, she was speechless. So they simply stood there in the hot sun, staring at each other. The anguish in his eyes was so raw that she was tempted to look away, but instead she felt her own eyes beginning to fill with tears. No. She would not cry in front of Jack Kelly over this, she would _not_. Back on the offensive.

“It’s not even my money, Jack, it’s my father’s, and you hate him, so why do you care how I spend it?”

He spluttered. “That’s just it! It’s not even your money and you still get to throw it every which way, on fancy clothes and ice cream sundaes and symphony tickets and… and devil-cussed rally _donations_!” His chest was heaving, and his hazel eyes had turned the pale, delicate green that signaled that he, too, was on the verge of tears. “Don’t you see? We’s from different worlds, you an’ me. We was kidding ourselves, thinkin’ this could work.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous! My father bled you dry for near on a decade, so the way I see it, you’ve earned every penny of his money that I decide to spend on you. If you’d let me, I’d just hand you a fistful of it, but ohhhh no, you won’t allow _that_. You and your godforsaken pride, Jack Kelly, you make your life so much harder than it has to be! I swear I’ve never met anyone with an ego like yours, I—”

“Don’t you try to pin this on my pride, Katherine Pulitzer, don’t you dare! The problem ain’t me, the problem is that a newsie is tryin’ ta be with an heiress. Whoever hearda somethin’ so stupid?” He began pacing again, and his voice was getting thick. 

Passers-by were beginning to stare. _Let them_ , Katherine thought. _I’m not ashamed to be seen with him, even when he’s yelling._

He took a deep breath and continued. “I may be young and I may be poor, but I ain’t dumb. This ain’t gonna work, and you’s a fool if you thinks it is.” Jack clenched his jaw so hard that Katherine could see the muscles tighten in his face. “An’ you ain’t no fool, Ace. You don’t wanna be with someone who can’t afford to treat ya right, you deserve a man who ain’t gonna eat up your inheritance by makin’ you pull out your pocketbook every time you goes anywheres ya gotta wear a clean shirt to be allowed in.” He cleared his throat to rid his voice of emotion, and then betrayed himself by speaking so softly that Katherine could barely hear him. “I know ya think ya don’t mind, but trust me, someday you will. Someday soon. An’ I’ll mind, too. Heck, I mind _now_. An’ I can’t… I….” The tears began to spill over, and Jack dashed them away, disgusted with himself. “I can’t let you break my heart like that, Ace, I just can’t. Please… please don’t do that to me.”

Katherine stood still for a second, mouth hanging open, unable to find words to throw at him or calm him or convince him to just wait, let her think this through, she hadn’t seen this coming, how was she supposed to argue him out of such idiocy without any time to prepare for it? 

“I swear, Jack Kelly, you are the most _im_ -possible boy…” she began, bent on making him see reason.

But Jack shook his head and stepped forward, every line in his face set with determination. Quirking up one side of his mouth in a heartbreaking attempt at a smile, he took her hands in his. “So long, Miss Pulitzer.” He kissed her gently on the cheek and walked away, his receding form blurred by her tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so much fun doing little bits of side research for this chapter! I stumbled across Maud Park Wood when I was googling muckrakers and suffragettes and other people Katherine could have wanted to go meet, and the College Equal Suffrage League just fell right into my lap. Katherine would be all over the fight for women's suffrage, don't you think?
> 
> I also had no idea what the purchasing power of a dollar was back then, so that was interesting to learn more about, too. According to the internet (which always tells the truth about everything, right?) 20 cents in 1900 (which is when I'm setting this story) is worth nearly $5.50 in 2016 US dollars, and you could buy 10 pounds of potatoes for 14 cents. Or a pound of bacon. Or a half gallon of milk. So Jack has a right to feel ripped off, I think. But for historical accuracy's sake, and in order to avoid giving Barnard College a bad name, I want to say that I have *no* idea if that sort of event would've asked attendees for donations. I highly doubt they would have, to be honest, but I needed some sort of inciting event to make the money disparity to come to the fore.
> 
> Other little side notes-- I don't know if Barnard was one of the colleges that Maud Park Wood went to on her speaking tour of women's colleges, but she did visit campuses in New York City and Barnard did exist back then, so it's possible. Also, apparently Joseph Pulitzer's house burned down in January 1900, so he rented a house on 72nd street and lived there for the next 3 years until his new, custom-built residence was ready. Katherine's reaction to the fire could make for another interesting story... but I have to finish this one first. Haven't started on the next section yet, so patience is kindly requested (as are comments and kudos. ;) But only if you want to) . 
> 
> I hope you're enjoying it so far! <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Katherine does some soul-searching and Jack picks a fight.

Stunned, Katherine stumbled towards the street. They’d been officially together for nine months now; how could he just end things like that? And what was the big deal about forty lousy cents? Sure, she knew Jack had grown up poorer than she could comprehend, she knew she would never understand how that had shaped him, and she was pretty sure that he spent a large part of his salary on the other newsies, but the fact was that he _had_ a salary now. She made two dollars a day as a female reporter, so Jack ought to be making much more than that. Which meant that if he couldn’t afford to pay forty cents for a rally and was mad that Katherine could, then that was his fault, not hers. 

She could still make the rally if she went back now; she’d been looking forward to it for weeks and had even pitched a story about it to _The Sun_. Her editor would not be pleased if she showed up to work tomorrow without the promised article. But she felt that returning would be tantamount to betraying Jack, and besides, she felt sick to her stomach over their fight. All she wanted to do was go home, lock herself in her room, and cry. 

It would have taken her only an hour or so to walk back to the Sloane Mansion, but Katherine was so stung by Jack’s remarks about her spending habits that she flagged down a taxi just to show herself that she didn’t care what he thought. 

“Where to, Miss?”

“Number 9 East 72nd Street, please.”

The cabbie nodded, and the large vehicle rumbled away. 

***

After leaving Katherine in Riverside Park, Jack wandered aimlessly up one street and down another. He couldn’t go back to Lower Manhattan and risk being seen by anyone he knew until the evidence of his tears had disappeared, and although he was almost certain that the illustrators’ section of the office would be empty at this time on a Sunday, he couldn’t trust himself to keep his temper if anybody did come in and make a snide remark. So wandering it was. 

He didn’t pay much attention to whether he was walking through upscale neighborhoods or the kinds of streets that people tended to avoid even in broad daylight; Jack Kelly could handle himself if it came down to it, and besides, he was in the mood for a fight. It didn’t take him long to find one. As Jack walked by a row of tenement houses, he heard a deep voice jeer, “Wouldja look at that, we gotta fancypants uptowner slummin’ it with us for the day, huh?” Jack whirled around and spotted a bruiser of a man, empty beer bottle in hand, sitting on the front stoop of a rundown building. The man guffawed. “An’ he’s been cryin’! We don’t take kindly to crybabies here, boy.” Several children who had been playing hopscotch nearby gave the man a wary look and began backing away. “Ya want I should give you a real reason to cry?” He stood up and set the bottle beside him on the curb.

Jack didn’t even pause to think, he simply launched himself at the larger man. He got several good punches in to start, including a ringer to the jaw that sent one of his opponent’s teeth flying, but the man quickly overcame his surprise and evened up the fight. Still, Jack held his own, fueled by rage and the desperate need for a distraction. He was running on pure adrenaline and emotion, incapable of thought or pain, simply acting on an unconscious desire to make this man hurt as much as Jack was hurting over Katherine. 

Jack reared back to put his full weight behind his next punch, but this gave the other man just enough time to scuttle back and grab the empty beer bottle. The newsboy’s eyes widened. He could tell what was about to happen, but he’d started his swing, his momentum was carrying him forwards, and there was no way to avoid what was coming. With a gap-toothed leer, the man raised the bottle high and smashed it across Jack’s head, sending the newsboy crashing unconscious to the ground. 

*** 

“Here we are, Miss,” said the taxi driver.

“Thank you,” said Katherine, exiting the vehicle and walking up to pay the driver. She paused for a second, and then, instead of counting out correct change, she opened her coin purse and poured its entire contents onto the driver’s seat. Then she turned and marched up the steps to her house.

“Whaaaa…. Miss? Miss? Wait, Miss, you’ve overpaid!” 

Katherine ignored the flabbergasted taxi driver and, her face stoic and her back ramrod straight, she disappeared into the Pulitzers’ rented mansion. 

Wilson closed the door behind her with a deep bow, shutting out the taxi driver’s calls. After triple locking the door, he said, in a very proper, solemn voice, “I see that rascal doesn’t even have the manners to escort you home, Miss Katherine. What a disgrace. You deserve better.” 

Of course, this was precisely the wrong thing to say. Katherine threw up her hands. “ _Why_ does everyone insist on telling me what they think about my relationship with Jack when they don’t know the first thing about him? Yes, he’s got a thick accent and rough manners and more cheek than anyone ought to, but you know full well that I’m no picnic, Wilson.” Her voice began to crack. “I’m a stubborn, insolent, pampered know-it-all who tries to sass her way out of problems instead of addressing the emotional needs behind them, and yet somehow I don’t see anyone telling Jack that _he_ deserves better.” She swallowed hard and fixed the butler with a steely glare. “No, no one ever tells Jack Kelly that he deserves better than what he’s got. They only tell me. And you know why that is, Wilson?” The butler merely blinked, but Katherine wasn’t looking for an answer, anyway. “It’s because someone, somewhere, has decided that the only people on earth who deserve more than what they have are the people who’ve already got everything. Like me.” She laughed bitterly. “I get the world—in fact, I’ll inherit _The World_ , ha!—and if I ask, I can get the moon and the stars delivered, too. And people like Jack? They get a kick in the shins and a punch in the stomach. The moment they start to even _hope_ that maybe things have changed, someone shoves them back down into the gutter." She paused to catch her breath. "Because if someone can make it out of the gutter, that means maybe someone on the street could slip _into_ the gutter. And we can’t have that, oh no, we can’t acknowledge it even though it happens _every day_ , so we’ve got to keep things as they are, everyone in their assigned place, and no mixing, please.” Katherine stomped her foot at the terrified butler. “Well I won’t have it, Wilson, I won’t! Jack deserves more than what he’s got, and I’ll do everything I can to make sure he gets it. If you _ever_ say anything like that to me again, or if I ever find him waiting on the front step instead of in the parlor because _you_ haven’t let him in, you will have to seek employment elsewhere.” The butler’s mouth dropped open. “Have I made myself clear?” Katherine asked, her voice dangerously low. 

“Yes, Miss. Perfectly.” He blanched, bowed, and scurried away, mumbling something about having to check the place settings for dinner.

Katherine, suddenly exhausted from the emotional ups and downs of the day, sank onto the bench in the foyer and began to cry. She’d been sobbing deep, gut-wrenching sobs for a good five minutes when she felt a soft touch on her shoulder. 

“Katherine, dear, what is it?” 

Katherine stopped crying and looked up to see her mother’s gentle face. “Oh, Mama!” She threw her arms around her mother’s waist and burst into tears again. 

“There, there, darling.” Kate Pulitzer sat down next to her daughter and wrapped the girl in a hug. “Talk to me, Kitty. What’s the matter?” 

Katherine, tears still leaking from the corners of her eyes, managed to hiccup through an abbreviated version of the day’s events, finishing with, “I don’t even know what I did! I don’t know why he left! It’s only forty cents! I can’t help being who I am and liking what I like, and I don’t mind who Jack is and what he likes, so why does he mind _me_?”

Kate stroked her daughter’s hair gently. “You know that’s not entirely true, darling. Jack’s not used to having money, much less money to spend on lovely –but entirely frivolous– things, and you mind that he isn’t suddenly comfortable with being more carefree in his habits. You enjoy spending money on him, and you mind that he feels as if he’s always taking things from you and never giving anything in return. You mind that he thinks you should be more careful with your money –which you could be, although you don’t have to be.” 

“Mmm. And I suppose he has to be incredibly careful with his money,” Katherine murmured. 

“Yes, darling, and I suspect he feels badly that he can’t keep up with you in that way. He can’t even come close. It’s hard enough to have that imbalance in a friendship, let alone in a romance. Particularly for the man, because, modern woman though you are, that’s just not how things are done.”

“But I don’t mind doing things that way!”

“I know, love, but you’re not the only one in this relationship. You have to think about what Jack wants, rather than what you think he should want.”

Katherine sighed. “You’re right. I keep pretending the money doesn’t matter, but it does. And we should talk about it.” She straightened up out of her mother’s hug, and Kate handed her a linen handkerchief. “Thank you, Mama. But Jack left—he ended things—what do I do?”

“I think you should do what you do best—go be a reporter.”

“What?”

“Investigate the story, dear. Track down the interviews, get the answers you need, and don’t take no for an answer.”

Katherine sat in thought for a moment, and then she grinned. “You’re absolutely right. That is something I can do.” After wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, Katherine sprang onto her feet. “I’m off, Mama– I’ve got a story to report, and the news waits for no one!”

Kate Pulitzer rose and smiled as she watched her namesake race through the foyer and out the door. “Go get him, Kitty.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently NYC and some other American cities had electric taxis in 1900! Who knew. (Well, I'm sure lots of people knew, but I did not.)
> 
> Jack is such a willful character; he wasn't supposed to break up with Katherine or pick a fight with anyone, but then he goes off and does it anyway, so now I'm left to clean up his messes. Thanks, Jack. Fingers crossed he shapes up in the next chapter.
> 
> As always, thanks for reading, and I hope you liked this latest installment! With any luck, the next one will be up in a few days, tops.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack climbs through a window and Davey curses (in Hebrew).

The first thing Jack was aware of was a pounding pain in his head. The second was that he was lying on filthy cobblestones, not the cool metal fire escape at the newsboys’ lodging house. “Where… Oh. Right.” The argument, the breakup, the brawl. He’d forgotten for a moment. Groaning, he pushed himself up to a sitting position and took stock of his injuries. Plenty of bruises on his torso, as expected, and a few cuts on his hands, too; he’d probably fallen onto some shards of the broken bottle. Yep, that was a sliver of glass right there, stuck in his palm—he plucked it out and tossed it aside. Maybe he could buy some alcohol at Jacobi’s, clean these cuts out before work. So far so good, nothing he couldn’t handle. He moved on to his head, probing at a tender lump right in the center of his scalp. It was already the size of an egg, and it’d probably swell even larger, but he’d be able to hide that under his cap. Not a problem. He raised his hands to test his face, eyeing the bruised knuckles doubtfully. Those might attract some attention at the office, though, and– “ _Ho_ ly _hell!"_ He jerked his left hand away as pain blossomed up from his cheekbone. No doubt about it, that was definitely a black eye. So much for looking like a respectable employee. Ah well, the guys in the newsroom already thought he was a guttersnipe, what did he care if they saw him like this. And the newsies wouldn’t blink twice, at least not once he’d had time to clean up the worst of it.

Jack stood up slowly and bent to brush the street dirt off of his pants –they were none the worse for wear, thank heavens– and his shirt. “Oh, for cryin’ out loud!” His shirt wasn’t just dirty, it was destroyed. There was a huge tear in the right sleeve, and the front was stained with blood. Had he even paid off this shirt yet? Growling in disgust, he ripped the button-down over his head and balled it up in his fist. He wasn’t tossing out anything he owned unless he absolutely had to; maybe Davey’s mom or sister could tell him how to wash out the blood, and then he could sew it up one night after work. Katherine had made sure it was of excellent quality, so surely it was salvageable. He hoped it was, anyway, considering how much money he’d had to shell out for it.

_The money._ Jack’s heart began to race and he shoved his hand into his pocket. Nothing. He checked the other pocket. Still nothing. Jack swore. That creep hadn’t just left him lying unconscious in the street; he’d stolen Jack’s money, too. And with the newspaper illustrations and political cartoons keeping Jack so busy, he wouldn’t have time to sell papers again until next Sunday. His lodging house rent was due this week, and he’d already told Crutchie he’d cover his friend’s share this month—where was he going to get the cash for that now? Not to mention the money for the next installment on the clothes, which was due Friday. Jack quickly ran the numbers in his head. Even if he didn’t eat this week and didn’t spend any money on food for the other newsies, either, he'd still come up short. Maybe he could borrow a dime from Katherine, she was always urging him to—no. He’d burned that bridge. “Burned it and then stomped on the ashes, more’s like,” he muttered. No. Katherine was not in his life anymore, and he was not in hers, and they’d both be happier this way. For sure.

He felt like death warmed over, though, and it wasn’t just because of the fight. _Come on, Jack, you’ve been through worse, you’ll be fine._ He glanced up at the sun. It looked to be about six o’clock, maybe seven, and he had to be at the office by 8:30 to illustrate any late-breaking stories. That gave him a few hours to get back to Lower Manhattan, clean up, and mentally prepare for the newsroom’s shameless stares and low whispers. Jack sighed. _Pull it together, Jackie Boy._ He rolled his neck from side to side, shook out the tightness in his shoulders, and headed off to visit the one person he knew would help him out and keep his secrets: Davey Jacobs. 

Davey was reading a book at the kitchen table, his back to the window, when he heard something tapping on the glass. He rolled his eyes. “I keep telling you, Jack, the apartment has a door,” he said, but even as he spoke, he was moving towards the window to let his friend in. He pushed up the sash and did a double-take. “ _A chorbn!_ Jack, what did you do?”

Jack squeezed through the window with a grimace. “Why ya gotta assume _I_ did somethin’? Maybe someone did somethin’ ta me.”

“Well, obviously they did, but usually you’re the one who started it.”

“That ain’t fair!”

“Okay, fine. Who started it?” Davey crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows.

“…I did.”

“Well, then. Question stands. What did you do?” 

“What’s it look like I did? I got in a fight, didn’t I?”

“No kidding.” Davey narrowed his eyes at Jack, who was fidgeting in place, making the wooden floorboards creak. The eldest Jacobs boy sighed. If Jack didn’t want to talk, then there was no point in pushing things. “Let’s get you cleaned up, alright?”

“Thanks.”

As the two boys sat, scrubbed away the muck of the fight, and disinfected Jack’s cuts, Jack slowly started to talk. He finished by saying, “I just don’t know what I’m gonna do. How’m I gonna make it through the week?” His shoulders slumped. “An’ I don’t just mean the money; I mean Katherine, too. She’s better off without me, but I already miss her like the dickens, and it’s only been a couple hours.”

“Yeah, and it took you less than an hour without Katherine to get yourself beat up worse than you have since the strike.”

Jack threw his wet washrag at Davey’s face. “Ya don’t gotta rub it in!”

“Ugh, Jack, that’s disgusting, this thing is covered in dirt!”

“Yeah, well, it’s got water on it, too, just use that to clean yourself up.”

“That makes no sense.”

“ _You_ make no sense.”

Davey threw up his hands in exasperation. “Alright, fine. You asked me how you’re going to make it through the week, so I’ll tell you. You let me give you some money—no, no protesting, Les and I usually make it out to sell papes a couple of times a week, and since Father got back on his feet, he and Mother have us keep most of the money ourselves.” He walked to a nearby shelf and pulled down a can of green peas. He set it down on the table and pushed it towards Jack. “We wouldn’t have made even half as much if you hadn’t taught us your tricks,” he said with a smile. “Les still tells everyone he’s seven, six if he’s feeling ambitious, and he’s got the best fake cough I’ve ever heard. So I’d say you’re entitled to some of this. Maybe this time we can split it sixty forty our way, though?” He winked.

“Aw, Davey, I can’t take your money, you an’ Les worked hard for it.”

“Seriously, take what you need to make it through the week. At least a dollar. We can call it a loan if you like, but I won’t accept repayment.” 

Jack’s eyes flitted up to Davey’s and then away. “I hates havin’ to do this.”

“I know.”

Jack reached into the can and pulled out a dollar, wrinkled and squashed from the time it had spent masquerading as a pea. “Thanks, Jacobs. You’re a real pal.”

“I’m just glad you asked for help. You don’t always have to shoulder the weight of the world on your own, you know.” 

“Mmm,” said Jack, staring at the lines in the wooden table. “Say, you wouldn’t happen ta have a decent shirt I could borrow, wouldja? I can’t go into work like this, an’ I won’t make it to the office on time if I hafta go to the lodging house first. Ya know how the boys are, gotta ask a million questions before they let a fella get what he came for.”

“Sure thing.” Davey opened the apartment’s back window, behind which his mother had somehow managed to hang a small clothesline. He carefully unpinned a white button-down shirt and handed it to Jack. 

“I’ll make sure I don’t ruin this one,” he promised. “Oh, an’ I’m guessin’ your family ain’t home or I’d’ve seen ‘em by now, so could ya ask your mom an’ sis how ta get bloodstains out of a shirt?”

Davey laughed. “I can help with that, actually. Mother made me and Les scrub our own shirts after the cops beat us up during the strike. She was _not_ happy with us that day, let me tell you. Said she scrubbed out enough bloodstains as a girl to last her a lifetime, so now it was our turn.” He shrugged. “It’s pretty simple. The sooner you wash it, the better, but other than that it’s just a matter of getting it in cold water and scrubbing as hard as you can. Rough soap will help, generates more friction, but plain old elbow grease will do if soap isn’t an option. Failing that, it's a white shirt, so try some bleach.”

“Elbow grease is one thing I got plenty of,” said Jack. “Alrighty then, I’m off to work. Thanks for the help and for not tellin’ the other boys. See ya Wednesday at Jacobi’s?”

“You bet. Oh, and Jack?”

“Hmm?” Jack was already halfway out the window, but he stuck his head back indoors.

“Try and fix things up with Katherine, okay? You two are good for each other.”

Jack snorted. “Yeah, right. Like fun am I good for her. See ya later, tell your family I say hey.”

Davey shook his head as Jack disappeared down the fire escape. “Katherine’s right to call him impossible, he really is. But he’s worth every bit of trouble he causes, too. Skipping meals so he can pay Crutchie’s rent… What a guy.” Sighing, he closed the window and went back to reading _How the Other Half Lives._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _A chorbn!_ —Literally, "A disaster!" But, if the internet can be believed, then basically it's "Oh shit!" in Hebrew (Davey definitely speaks Yiddish, reads Hebrew, and knows a few choice Hebrew phrases)
> 
> _How the Other Half Lives _—Jacob Riis’ photojournalistic book about tenement life in NYC, which, although it included nasty ethnic stereotypes, was progressive for its time by arguing that poor people weren’t inherently criminal, lazy, dirty, etc., they just lived in bad conditions that could and should be improved.__
> 
> __As always, thanks for reading, I hope you liked it, and kudos and comments are greatly appreciated (seriously, they make my day, especially the comments :) ). Oh, and there are at least 4 more chapters coming, though I might end up writing more than that; it all depends on how long it takes me to hit the plot points I've got planned. Thanks for your patience, and I hope that you've had even half as much fun reading this as I've had writing it!_ _


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack goes to work and Katherine appears only briefly.

Jack looked longingly at the hot dog vendor stationed outside the New York World Building before frowning and heading through the arched entryway. He knew from experience that the first few days of not eating would be fine; hunger sharpened his focus, at least to start. So, looking on the bright side, his drawings would be exceptional until about Thursday. Of course, the work he did for the weekend editions would be, well, terrible –gnawing hunger pains that woke him up in the witching hour did not boost his creativity, they just made him grumpy– but three days of subpar material oughtn’t to get him fired. And probably, if he really needed it –but only if he absolutely had to– he could ask Davey to spot him a meal at Jacobi’s on Wednesday.

Jack ambled across the gleaming parquet floor of the lobby and headed toward the building’s bank of elevators. He was a little bit early, but the World Building was still crowded— day reporters headed home for a late dinner, messenger boys scurrying to deliver urgent telegrams, typesetters and stenographers coming and going for smoke breaks, and the usual gaggle of people come to complain about an article they disliked, hand-deliver a letter to the editor, or pitch terminally boring stories. Jack was lost in thought when the elevator arrived, but as he got into the small box and watched the sea of people in the lobby recede, he could have sworn he saw Katherine’s red head bobbing away towards the building’s entrance. His heart somersaulted in his chest. To see her again, even for a second, made him go weak at the knees. But it couldn’t have been Katherine. Why on earth would she be here? Despite Joseph Pulitzer’s repeated entreaties, Katherine still worked for _The Sun_ , and she stayed so far away from her father’s newspaper operation that she refused even to meet Jack outside the building.

No, it couldn’t have been her. _And that meant…_ He blinked furiously to escape the thought, but he couldn’t outrun facts. It was happening again, damn it. After Jack’s father died, the small boy spent months seeing Stephen Kelly get lost in crowded marketplaces, sitting several rows ahead of him at Miss Medda’s shows, guiding a team of horses down a cross-street, and entering office buildings where Jack couldn’t follow. Every vision of his father tore his heart out anew, as the man-who-wasn’t-Stephen disappeared again, and again, and again. And every time he saw his father his spirits soared, because his father had just hopped a train, see, now he was back, that stiff figure in the coffin had been a mistake, wouldn’t they laugh about it over a hot supper together, and—and then he was gone. Again. Forever. Leaving Jack behind.

Funny; he’d said goodbye to Katherine in part because he couldn’t bear to lose her. He’d thought that if he left first, and on his own terms, then it wouldn’t hurt so bad. But his mind didn’t care about Jack's brilliant plan—it wanted Katherine back, so it was inventing her where she couldn’t possibly be. And his heart wanted her back, too, so it was shattering inside of him. He braced himself against the wall of the elevator. He couldn’t go through this again, he couldn’t… seeing ghosts everywhere he turned, thousands of girls-who-weren't-Katherine, every girl in New York City mocking him with the ghost of her smile… His head ached like he was trapped in a vise, and his breathing came quick and shallow. He had to get out of here, he had to leave, he had to go somewhere else, somewhere new, somewhere safe….

“Going up,” announced the elevator operator. “Please stand clear of the doors.”

Jack jumped, then collected himself. “Evenin’, Jim,” he nodded to the tall, smartly dressed man standing next to the elevator’s hand lever.

“Evenin’, Jack,” the operator said. Seeing the haunted look in Jack’s eyes and, no doubt, the purple-green bruise that marred Jack’s face, he added, “Long day?”

“The longest. You?”

“You know how it is for us non-unionized folk. Long days and short pay is just part of the job.” The man winked.

Affecting a nonchalant air, Jack said, “I keeps tellin’ ya, I gots experience with unionizing. I can put ya in touch with a bang-up organizin’ genius if ya want, real solid fella, name of Jacobs.”

Jim smiled. “As always, I ‘preciate the offer, but I can’t see New York bowing to a union of black men just yet. Give us time, though, we’ll get there.”

“I knows ya will. An’ when the time comes, ya know ya can call on me.”

Jim dipped his head in acknowledgment and positioned the elevator so that it sat level with the sixth floor “Here’s your stop, Jack. Have a nice night.”

“Thanks. You, too.”

As soon as Jack entered the newsroom, the murmurs and half-hidden stares began. _God bless Jim for not commenting on my black eye_ , Jack thought, _because these rats ain’t even tryin’._ He swaggered to his desk in the far corner, next to a large window that bathed his desk in beautiful natural light during the day. It was late enough now that dusk was falling, though, despite its being high summer, and so he carefully lit the gas lamp at his desk. Rubbing his forehead in a futile attempt to relieve his headache, he picked up the list of story assignments his editor had left on Jack’s desk.

Usually Jack had about five stories to illustrate on Sunday nights; his editor gave him short summaries of the articles that needed accompanying pictures, and Jack was free to draw whatever he wanted, as long as it was eye-catching and vaguely related to the article. That second requirement was less of a requirement and more of a guideline, though, as Jack had recently discovered. It turned out that if he drew something splashy enough, his editor was willing to waive the need for even the most tenuous connection to a piece. Which is why he’d gotten away with illustrating an article about the short-term interest rate on government bonds with a drawing of a bare-chested man wrestling a crocodile. He’d shown that one off to the other boys, for sure. Albert had even bought himself a paper that day, just so he could tear out the drawing and hang it up over his bed.

“I’d draw ya one for free, ya big moron,” Jack had said, secretly flattered.

“Yeah, but _this_ one’s been published in _The World_ ,” said Albert, too busy admiring his new picture to think about the financial value of original works vs. mass reproductions.

The stories tonight seemed pretty standard—house fire, society lady discussing her charity work, meaningless political speech, opinion piece on the evils of drink, and… the women’s suffrage rally held by Maud Wood Park at Barnard College? What kind of game was his editor playing at? Scowling, he marched over to Mr. Nolan’s desk and slapped the page down with a bang. “The women’s rally? What’s this about?”

Nolan didn’t even bother to look up from the article he was correcting. “Bunch of loud ladies wanting to vote, I suppose. I haven’t actually read the article. Just draw a couple of women holding signs or wearing hats or something, it’s a simple assignment.”

“No, I mean why did you give it to _me_. How’d you know?”

“Know what?” Nolan did look up at that, and then he blanched at the sight of Jack’s steadily expanding black eye. “Heavens above, Kelly, what happened to you?”

“Why’d. Ya. Gimme. The. Rally.” Jack growled through gritted teeth.

“I, uh, the author asked for you by name,” Nolan said.

“He what?”

“She, actually. She asked that you illustrate the piece. Said she’d take it elsewhere if we didn’t give you the assignment. We didn’t have any reporters covering the rally, and your job is to draw what we give you –plus the political cartoons, of course–, so I agreed.” He looked at Jack suspiciously. “Are you in some kind of trouble, Kelly? Is this some sort of secret gangland code, you get passed a message and then draw an image that tips the Five Points Gang off to a shipment of gold being delivered to the bank or something?” His eyes narrowed even further. “Their leader’s a Kelly, is he a relation?”

Jack wasn’t even sure how to react to that. “You gotta be kiddin’ me, Mr. Nolan. Do us all a favor an’ stop readin’ those yellow crime novels already. I ain’t never been in no gang and I ain’t never gonna be. I got roughed up for runnin’ my mouth, is all, an’ I’m sure you’re surprised it ain’t happened sooner.” The editor settled back in his chair, slightly skeptical but mostly chastened. “Now hand over the article, I needs ta see this with my own peepers.”

“I can’t do that. It hasn’t been copy-edited or typeset yet, it just came in.” Jack decided to take advantage of the editor’s penchant for conspiracy theories and give him a particularly menacing look. “O-on second thought, I can get it to you right now, hang on….” He turned to his left and began rummaging through a stack of papers. “Uh, there you are, Mr. Kelly, and take as long as you like with it.” Nolan adjusted his glasses as Jack took the typewritten article from the editor’s trembling hand.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll have it back to you soon’s I’ve had a read-through. I needs ta get a better feel for the content of this one, is all.”

Back at his desk, Jack smoothed out the wrinkled paper and read the first three lines. 

WOMEN RALLY IN SUPPORT OF FOUNDING FATHERS’ IDEALS

Ladies Gather to Cheer for Freedom, Equality

By Ethel S. Plumber

Jack leaned back in his chair and started to laugh. “Katherine Ethel Spontaneous Plumber, you are a real piece of work,” he said, shaking his head and reaching for a pencil. So she _had_ been here. Good to know he wasn’t going crazy after all. And even though he still thought Katherine was better off without him, he appreciated the olive branch. Maybe this would help him feel less hollow inside. It was certainly helping right now. He ought to get straight to illustrating, but he wanted to read the rest of the article first, and it shouldn’t take him more than a couple of minutes. He was getting faster at reading; spending so much time around Katherine and Davey forced a guy to become a little bit more bookish.

_"Respectable women from all over New York City assembled at Barnard College yesterday to attend a rally convened by Miss Maud Wood Park in support of women’s suffrage and the College Equal Suffrage League. Several hundred women of all ages, boroughs, and backgrounds agreed that Mrs. Park’s speech was a call to action that all truly patriotic Americans must heed, because giving women the vote is not a newfangled or immoral notion, but rather a step that takes us all closer to the ideals on which this great country was founded. Our nation has overcome financial hardships, a tyrannical monarchy, and a brutal Civil War in the pursuit of establishing a society committed to freedom, liberty, and equality. When questioned by this reporter, rally attendees were adamant in supporting these fundamental American principles. Regardless of gender, class, or race, citizens of the United States are indeed united in their belief that it is imperative to have liberty and justice for all. One of this reporter’s sources, who gave her name as Katherine, commented that 'It does not matter whether you are a man or a woman, it does not matter where you come from, it does not matter what assumptions people make about you, and it does not matter how much money is in your purse—every single American deserves love and happiness and the right to vote. None of us deserve those things more than any of the rest of us, and none of us deserve those things any less, either.' Mrs. Park’s speaking and rally tour at American women’s colleges makes its next stop at The Finch School on Monday evening."_

Jack took a deep breath when he’d finished the piece. He knew exactly how to illustrate it, and he couldn’t wait to get started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elevators used to be operated manually; the technology needed to run them automatically was available in 1900, but people were too freaked out by the idea of an unmanned elevator to use them (kind of like driverless cars today :) ), so elevator operators were still a thing for several more decades. They started being phased out in 1945. Most elevator operators in the US were black, and the elevator operators in New York City unionized in 1917. One more fun fact for you: their unionization efforts were led by A. Philip Randolph, the same man who created the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union in 1925. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it, and I always love getting feedback from you guys! 
> 
> Oh, and I have plot points for the next chapter but no words have been written, so we shall see how long it takes me.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Katherine visits the newsies and Specs spills a secret.

When Katherine woke up on Monday morning, she didn’t even bother to throw on her dressing gown before racing downstairs to check the paper. Her father always had the first paper off the presses hand-delivered to him every morning in his home office, so it wasn’t like she needed to get dressed in street-ready clothes—she just had to be decent enough to be seen by family and staff. She slipped on the slick wooden hallway as she ran, overbalanced through her father’s office door, and ended up falling in a heap on the floor of Pulitzer’s private study.

“Katherine! What on earth are you doing?” Joseph Pulitzer rose to his feet behind his desk to peer down at his impetuous daughter.

“I need to see the paper!”

“I’m reading it. You may read it when I have finished.” Pulitzer sat back down and replaced his glasses.

“No, you don’t understand, I _have_ to see the paper.”

“You’ve said that already. And as I recall, not more than two seconds ago I told you that you would have to wait.” He turned his eyes back to the paper and waved his hand to shoo Katherine out the door. “Patience is a virtue, Katherine, and one that you would do well to learn. Why I spent so much money on that pricey but clearly ineffective governess, I will never know.”

Exasperated, Katherine reached across her father’s large desk and ripped the paper out of his hands. She ignored Pulitzer’s spluttering to flip quickly from page to page, searching for her byline.

“There it is!” She shrieked, tearing the full sheet out from the rest of the paper. “You can have the rest back, Father, thank you,” she said, darting back out the door.

“Katherine? Katherine! Come back here this instant! That’s _my_ paper!” Veins were bulging out of Pulitzer’s neck, and he banged his fist on his desk several times to make his point, but to no avail—Katherine was already clattering back upstairs to her room, and she couldn’t hear him.

Breathless, she dashed into her room, slammed the door, and dove onto her four-poster bed. Spreading out the single sheet of paper in front of her, her gaze was immediately drawn to the bold, confident lines of Jack’s illustration. Her eyes filled with tears. The image was of a crowd scene, but there, front and center, was a miniature Katherine, her eyes shining the way they only ever did for Jack, her smile on the cusp of breaking into laughter. She looked exactly the way she had felt with him on the way to the rally, and she loved him for noticing that, for seeing her, for continuing to discover and explore parts of her that no one else had even known existed. Trembling, she stretched her hand out to trace the lines of the drawing with her fingers, as if imitating Jack’s pen-strokes could bring her closer to him. He had drawn her wearing a suffragette ribbon across her chest, her long red hair cascading over her shoulders, and she marveled at how he’d somehow managed to convey both her determination and her optimism in an image no bigger than a playing card.

As she looked more closely, she noticed a male figure hidden in the back of the crowd. She squinted to get a better look. Maybe her mother was right after all, maybe constant reading really did ruin your eyes… _Oh, my. Is that… Yes_. Her tears spilled over, soaking into the cheap newsprint. Jack had included himself in the scene, too, a cocky young man gazing at the Katherine figure. The expression on his face was one she recognized instantly, and it caused her to lose all her remaining composure. The slightly crinkled eyes, the lips pressed tightly together to keep from smiling, the head tilted just a little to the side—that was the look he gave her when he was completely, inexpressibly proud of her.

That was the way he’d looked at her when she’d landed her second front page article, when she’d realized that Smalls was terrified of testifying against Snyder in court and personally accompanied the young newsie to every hearing, when she’d faced her fear of dogs in order to help Buttons and Jack rescue a large mutt from a storm drain. That was the look that said, “Hello, world, do you see this brilliant, strong, compassionate woman? Isn’t she amazing? Can you believe that I’m lucky enough to know her?” It was a look she loved him for and always tried to live up to, and now the clever scamp had captured it forever, a permanent reminder that, no matter what happened to them in the future, he believed in her. And as long as he believed in her, she could believe in him, and in the two of them. Together.

Of course, even with the drawing, Katherine wasn’t certain that Jack had changed his mind on their relationship. She didn’t want to get her hopes up only to have them dashed; it could be merely an offering for friendship, after all, although she suspected -she _hoped_ \- it meant more. And even if it was a signal that he wanted to be with her, she still had a lot of hard work ahead of her to build a more equal relationship with Jack. Well, they both did; if she’d learned anything from their fight, it was that both parties had to be on board in order for something like this to work. Everyone always says it takes two to tango, and it does, but if one of them decides to quit, then the other one is done dancing, too.

Regardless of whether he was making an overture to friendship or something more, she knew that if she didn’t answer him quickly, he’d get nervous and shy away again. She needed to get in touch with him today. And not with a letter or an article this time; this had to be in person. Jack was intimately acquainted with all the ways you could use words to twist and hide your intentions, so she had to show him face to face that she was sorry she’d pushed his fears aside, and that, if he’d let her, she was going to do better.

Gestures meant a lot to Katherine—the little drawings Jack made for her, the messages he’d ask the newsboys who sold on her route to and from work to call out to her as she walked by, the inside jokes he’d hide in some of his illustrations, knowing she usually read _The World_ while on her lunch break. And while a nice gesture wasn’t completely lost on Jack, he responded best to simple, honest presence. Katherine nestling her head on his shoulder while they looked out at the city from the lodging house fire escape, her hand finding his as they walked down the street together, her racing to hug him on the days they met for dinner after work, her laugh as he whirled her around and kissed her on the mouth, scandalized onlookers be damned. Merely being punctual to dates with him eased the tension in his face. Just showing up meant an awful lot to Jack, and she had to make that happen today.

She would have to make it happen after work, though; she was running late. She could make up some time by skipping breakfast, but she’d still be cutting it close, and her editor hated tardy reporters nearly as much as he hated sloppy journalism. Not for the first time, Katherine secretly cursed the person who decided fashion was important; hooking all the clasps on her corset and fastening all the buttons on her dress and boots took a considerable amount of time. Time that could be better spent on other things, in her opinion, things like sleeping, or chasing down stories, or… kissing Jack. Blushing, Katherine distracted herself by turning to her wardrobe and pulling out the first dress she saw. Alright, Katherine, on with your day.

 

***

 

The next nine hours crawled by at a snail’s pace, and Katherine was certain she’d aged five years by the time her workday finally ended. The time probably would have dragged by regardless of the story she’d been assigned to cover, but it certainly didn’t help that her editor had sent her out to gather information on the city’s plans to re-dredge the harbor. An important issue, yes, but by no means an interesting one. She typed the final period in her dredging article just as the clock struck five, yanked the paper out of the typewriter, and strode over to the editor’s desk.

“In a hurry to be gone, eh? Not a fan of dredging?” Her editor, an older man with a neatly manicured mustache, winked at her.

“I wouldn’t exactly say it was my favorite article to write,” she said, “but just about anything beats covering the flower show. It’s a well-written, piece, Mr. Carstens,” she hastened to add. “I promise I didn’t rush through it— it’s just that I have a really important appointment later.”

“Ah, a meeting with a source for your big story?” He nodded, not waiting for an answer. “A true reporter is always on the clock. Good luck with your interview, Miss Plumber. You’re on the trail of another big one here,” he said, and turned his attention back to the stack of papers in front of him.

 _I hope he doesn’t think I’ll have that immigrant exploitation story written up for him tomorrow morning_ , thought Katherine, slightly annoyed at Mr. Carstens’ penchant for assuming he knew everything, especially things he couldn’t possibly know. On the whole, though, she had to admit that he was a decent boss. He didn’t force his reporters to stay late, unlike Mr. Jenkins up on the third floor or Mr. Fisher over on the crime beat, and he didn’t yell at her the way her father yelled at his employees.

Breaking her ironclad rule not to go anywhere near the World Building, she decided to wait for Jack on a bench across the street from the busy newspaper headquarters instead of at her usual bench on the opposite side of City Hall Park. Jack normally worked until around seven on Mondays, so she wouldn’t have missed him yet, and she’d brought a book to read and a sandwich to eat while she waited. But seven came and went, and then eight came and went, and not even so much as a glimpse of Jack. Maybe he’d gotten off early? _Two whole hours early, Katherine? Don’t be ridiculous. Illustration or no, he’s avoiding you._ She shoved the thought away and decided yes, he must’ve gotten off early, so she’d just have to go to the newsies’ lodging house to see him. It’d be a nice chance to say hello to the boys; work kept her so busy that it’d been a while since she’d had time to get over that way. She ought to be working tonight, too, but she’d forbidden herself from working on her big exposé about predatory employers who greeted the boats from Ellis Island until she’d seen Jack.

It took her a little over a half hour to make it to Delancey, plus an added stop at a candy store to gather treats for the newsies, and from there it was just a hop, skip, and a jump to the lodging house. Katherine whispered a word of thanks for the long summer days; she still didn’t feel comfortable walking around the Lower East Side alone at night. When she visited Jack, she either went in the daytime, or he’d walk her back to City Hall himself so that she could catch a cab from there. Sometimes he even insisted on escorting her all the way home, but she would usually demur, reminding him that he needed sleep, not three extra hours on his feet.

Most of the newsies were still out on the street at this hour, hawking the evening edition, but the youngest ones were either back with their parents or here at the lodging house. She didn’t bother to knock; no one ever did. Instead, she waltzed right on in and headed to the kitchen, where the boys tended to congregate. “How are my favorite newsies doing?” She asked, grinning at the group of little ragamuffins lolling on wooden chairs, throwing spitballs at each other, and playing various card games.

“Katherine!” At least eight of them sprang up to greet her, the quickest children rushing forward to wrap their arms around her legs and waist. She tousled their hair and even went as far as to heft the youngest one onto her hip, giving him a big kiss on the cheek.

“How are you all?”

She got various answers all at once, ranging from “Fine” to “Tired,” “Hungry,” and “Pulchritudinous.”

Katherine laughed. That last one had to have been Specs. She looked around for the older boy and spotted him playing jacks in the corner with a curly-headed kid she didn’t recognize. “I see you’re on kitten-wrangling duty tonight, Specs?”

“Yup,” the older newsie said. “Gotta make sure these kiddos get to bed on time and don’t burn the place down. Actually, it’s gettin’ to be bedtime now. Put those cards away, Higgs.” A grubby little boy started to protest loudly, and the others soon followed his lead. “Alright, alright!” He threw his hands up in mock defeat. “I’ll let ya stay up an’ extra five minutes if you’ll just pipe down! I knows ya got to practice your pape-sellin’ voices, but ya don’t have ta do it right in my ear!” Abandoning the game of jacks, he walked over to Katherine. “Nice ta see ya-- it’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t mean it like that! The paper life is busy no matter what side of the paper you’re on.”

“That’s so true,” she said. “I feel like I can barely catch my breath sometimes, and the story I’m working on right now makes me want to spit nails. But hey, at least I’m not reporting on flower shows anymore, thanks to you and the boys.”

He grinned. “Also true. So catch me up, Kath, whatcha been up to?”

The two chatted for a while, trading stories about Katherine’s reporting adventures (and misadventures), Specs’ latest prank on Buttons (which involved a fake mustache, a stray dog, and a heap of chicken bones), the general news on the other newsies (JoJo had swallowed a quarter by mistake yesterday, so they were all eagerly waiting to see what happened to him), and the latest rumors about Katherine’s grumpy father (did he really keep a list of insults hidden in his desk drawer so he was never lost for words?). Finally, Katherine said, “I know you need to round up the little ones, but before you do—is Jack around? I need to talk to him.”

“Nah, he’s not back yet. Want me to pass along a message?”

“Well, I was really hoping to see him in person. It’s important.”

“I haven’t seen him since… Hmm, since Sunday morning, actually. Crutchie said he didn’t come back last night, we figured he was with you.”

“ _What?_ You thought we were—you thought that we—” She spluttered for a few seconds. “...Um.” She cleared her throat and stood a little more primly. “No, he wasn’t with me.” A note of fear crept into her voice. “You’re sure no one has seen him today?”

“Yeah, I’d’ve seen if he’d come in earlier. You can check up on the fire escape if ya wanna, but I wouldn’t bother. If he wasn’t with you, he prob’ly just slept at the office.” Specs shrugged. “He does that sometimes, says it’s quieter than sleepin’ with a buncha snorin’ newsies.”

“Oh, well, that’s alright, then. I just don’t want to have to worry that he’s gotten himself into trouble somewhere. Do you have any idea when he’ll be back?”

“Couldn’t say, sorry. You can come by tomorrow, he’s usually back by nine or ten on a Tuesday.”

Katherine shook her head. “I wish I could, but I’ve got a pile of work to catch up on—I pushed off nearly everything on my to-do list so that I’d have time to meet him today. And later in the week won’t work, either,” she mused. “I’m supposed to wrap up a big investigative story in time for the Sunday edition, so I’ll probably be working up to the deadline on that... I don’t think I’ll be free again until that story comes out on Sunday.”

“Well, in that case, it really would be easiest to just pass along a message. He’ll turn up here eventually, he always does.”

“Alright. Would you ask him if we could meet on Sunday morning, then? I’d like to see him as soon as possible, and I know the illustrators at _The World_ have off until Sunday night.”

“Well I can answer that one for ya right now, actually—Jack’s always busy all day Sunday, so that ain’t gonna work. I can ask him about next Monday, if ya like?”

“What do you mean he’s always busy all day Sunday?” Katherine was getting frustrated. “He was free yesterday, we spent the afternoon together!”

“Yeah, well, he took off early yesterday, didn’t he? But that was just on account of how you switched up date night on him.”

“I still don’t understand. What did he leave early from?”

“From sellin’ papes, of course!” Specs goggled at her like a frog. “C’mon, Kath, you know that’s the best day to sell.”

“ _He’s still selling papers?!_ ” She yelled loudly enough to quiet all the little newsies, who’d been growing progressively rowdier while Specs’ attention was diverted.

“Well, yeah, a man’s gotta eat, don’t he?” Specs seemed offended. “You’ve got your pops to support you, but Jack don’t. A man can’t support himself on no illustrator’s salary, so Jack sells papers every Sunday to make up the difference.”

Katherine’s eyes narrowed. “Specs. Are you seriously telling me his job doesn’t pay him enough for him to be able to eat three meals a day and rent a room here?”

Specs guffawed. “That’s a good one, Kath. You know it don’t, you prob’ly makes the same as him. Oh, whoops, sorry—you prob’ly makes less, seein’ as you’re a girl an’ all.”

She rolled her eyes. “How many meals a day _does_ he eat?”

Specs gave her an incredulous look. “One or two, I guess, dependin’ on the day, just like we all do. He could afford a regular two, I bet, but he helps the rest of us out. There’s always someone who’s not havin’ too much luck with the sellin’.”

Katherine was trying as hard as she could to control her simmering rage, but her voice was getting progressively colder. “Okay. Let me make sure I’ve understood you correctly. So, to the best of your knowledge, for the last _twelve months_ Jack Kelly has been working at _The World_ as a full-time illustrator _and_ selling papers all day every Sunday?”

“Has it been that long since the strike?” Specs scratched his head. “Wow. Then yeah, I guess so. What a year it’s been, huh?”

“Oh, yes, it’s been quite a year…” Katherine had balled her fists so tightly that her fingernails were digging into her skin. “Thanks, Specs, you’ve been a huge help. If you see Jack, would you please tell him that I stopped by, I loved the drawing, and I’m going to come see him as soon as I possibly can? Hopefully on Sunday morning?”

“Ya mean Monday morning, right? I told ya Jack don’t have time on Sundays.”

“I know, but I’d like you to tell Jack exactly what I just said. Sunday morning. It’s important.”

Specs was about to protest, but, noticing Katherine’s fierce look, he nodded. “You got it, Kath. I’ll let him know.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it. Now, how about some help getting these little ones to bed?” She looked around the room and raised her voice. “Who wants to hear a fairy story?” A loud cheer rang out from the young boys in the kitchen, some of whom were already starting to nod off where they sat. “Alright, then, you’ve got to get ready for bed double quick, otherwise you’ll miss it. I’m starting as soon as I get to the third floor landing, and I won’t wait for any stragglers!”

The little boys scrambled to their feet and blew by Specs and Katherine, yelling, “Outta my way!” “Hey! No pushing!” “Hurry up, I gots ta hear Miss Kath’rine’s story!”

Specs folded his arms and grinned at her. “Wanna come be on kitten-wranglin’ duty every night? They listens to you lots better than they do me, that’s for sure.”

She clapped him on the shoulder. “It’s only because I’m a novelty, Specs. I’ve got to use my magic powers carefully or they’ll disappear, just like Cinderella’s beautiful dress at the stroke of midnight.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Cinder-who?”

“Oh, you don’t know that one? Well, you’ll want to come listen to the story, then. Go on now, get ready for bed, you want to set a good example for the little ones, don’t you?”

They both laughed, and Specs trotted up the stairs, with Katherine following slowly behind him.

 

***

 

After she’d told the children the story of Cinderella and tucked the youngest ones into bed, she climbed up to the rooftop just to check and make sure Jack hadn’t snuck in while she was spinning her tale. No luck. Just a neatly rolled bedroll, a carefully folded stack of clothes, and the waterproof case where Jack stored all of his drawings. She was tempted to look; Jack’s art was often a better window into his thoughts than Jack himself was, but she didn’t want to violate his privacy. Instead, she pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil and tucked a note into the crisp shirt on the top of his clean laundry pile.

 

_Dear Jack,_

_It’s Monday night, and I’m here, but I guess you’re still at work. Please, let’s talk soon. That big immigrant story I’ve been telling you about is due late Saturday night, so I need to ask if we can please move this week’s date night to Sunday morning. If you still want to go on dates with me, that is. I’ll understand if you don’t. I was a dragon yesterday, and I’m sorry. You can call date night whatever you like as long as you come… There are a few more things I need ask your forgiveness for, and I want to do that in person. Notes just aren’t the same…._

_I wish you were here, Jack. I always wish that when you aren’t with me. I hope you know that. And I hope I’ve never given you cause to doubt that, although I fear that I have. That’s one of the things I’m sorry for, but—I’ll tell you that in person. On Sunday. You see, I have a hunch that you’ll be free this Sunday morning. I need to check and make sure that I’m right about something first, but if I am, then I think you’ll be pleased with the results of what I’m about to go do. If things work out the way I hope, then we will both be free this Sunday, my darling Jack, and I will see you this Sunday and next Sunday and every Sunday after that for as long as you let me._

_Take heart, dear one._

_Your Ace_

            It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do. She still wished she’d been able to speak to him in person, but the note would show him that she had come, and that was all she could do tonight. It might even be for the best that he wasn’t here, considering how furious she was that he had been selling papers from dawn until dusk every single Sunday for a _year_ without telling her. She’d start yelling, and he’d get frustrated and shut down, and they’d be right back where they were yesterday afternoon, wanting nothing more than to grow closer but succeeding only in pushing each other apart.

            And if she were honest with herself, then a lot of the anger she felt over Jack’s paper selling wasn’t really anger at him, but anger at herself. How could she have been so blind? Every Sunday. Every single Sunday, and not once had she noticed. When she thought of how late she’d stayed with him on some of those Saturday nights, not knowing he had to be up at the crack of dawn the next day, or how carelessly she spent money in front of him, not trying to understand why it pained him so much to part with a single penny, or how expensive the clothes she picked out for him were—she'd thought he had a _salary_ , for heaven’s sakes, but if she’d bothered to open her eyes just once over the course of a year, she would have realized that he hadn’t. Not the kind of salary she thought, anyway. She prided herself on being a good reporter, on seeing details that others missed, and yet she had been completely blind to the struggles of the person she loved the most in the world. Apparently Katherine Pulitzer, permanent staff writer at _The Sun_ , was too distracted by her own poise and intelligence to notice that her boyfriend was subsisting from paycheck to paycheck. She knew that if she were in Jack’s place, she’d have kept quiet about the papers, too. She really couldn’t blame him. However, she could –and did– blame herself.

            Gritting her teeth, Katherine climbed down from the fire escape. She tiptoed through the halls of the lodging house so as not to wake the youngest newsies, stopped by the kitchen to pile the table high with the sweets she’d bought at the candy store on Delancey, and then she headed out into the gathering dusk. She had one more stop to make tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No real notes for this one, except to say that I'm ~thinking~ there will be three more installments, so the end is in sight. Thoughts so far? I hope you all are having a wonderful day and enjoying the results of my procrastination :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Katherine goes on the warpath, and Jack admits a few things to himself.

Katherine walked down the darkening city streets as briskly as possible. She’d stayed a little too long at the lodging house; the electric streetlights were flickering on, and the neighborhood was transitioning from the reassuring sounds of children playing hopscotch and tag into the din of heated arguments in overcrowded bars and cramped tenement buildings. She ignored the whistles and hoots she heard from men lounging tipsily on the front stoops she passed, keeping her eyes straight ahead. Although Katherine’s first instinct in any situation was to fight back, she’d learned long ago that when she was alone on the street like this, the best response was to avoid eye contact and pretend she hadn’t heard.

By the time she reached where she was going, she was a little bit rattled. _You weren’t in any real danger,_ _calm down_ , she told herself. And it was true, she hadn’t been—or at least she thought she hadn’t been. That was what scared her most; she could never really know. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself, and then she knocked on the door to a small tenement apartment. “A moment, please,” called a deep, thickly-accented voice. After several seconds, she heard the locks start to slide away from the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s Katherine Plumber, Mr. Jacobs. May I speak to Davey, please?”

The door swung open. “Katherine! Of course. Come in, come in.” He ushered her inside, locking the door securely after her. “Are you coming alone?” He asked, his voice dark with displeasure. “It is not safe here at night, you want you should get hurt?”

“You’re right, and I do apologize for coming so late, but this is urgent. I would have waited until morning if I could.” She did a little curtsey, hoping to mollify the frowning father in front of her. Davey always reassured her that his father was a kind, fair man, and she supposed he must be to have raised sons like Davey and Les and a daughter like Sarah, but he still made her nervous. Fathers were unpredictable in her experience, and so it was best to stay as far away from them as you could. Davey’s father made that impossible; he was an active presence in his children’s lives, and even if he hadn’t been, such a small apartment meant that there was no avoiding him when she dropped by. Katherine shifted nervously from foot to foot. She wasn’t used to someone being upset with her out of concern for her, and so she interpreted his worry as the prelude to a Pulitzer-like explosion.

Reuven Jacobs simply nodded, however. “I will find David. Please, sit.” He pulled a chair back from the kitchen table and waited for her to be seated before leaving the room.

Katherine half-listened to Mr. Jacobs speaking Yiddish in the other room of the apartment and wedged her hands under her thighs to keep them from shaking. Davey emerged moments later.

“Katherine! How are you?” He was beaming at her and extended his hand.

She shook it and then got right down to business. “Davey, I have an important question to ask you, and it’s inappropriate, but it’s critical that you give me an honest answer.”

His face paled, but he nodded and sat in the chair opposite her. “Okay, shoot.”

“How much money does Jack make?”

Davey blinked, and the color rushed back to his cheeks. “That was not where I thought you were headed with that question.”

“I don’t even want to know where you thought I was headed with that question.” Honestly, did all of the newsies have their minds in the gutter?

“I wasn’t implying—” He got a little flustered. “Never mind.”

“Davey. I need an answer.”

Davey’s eyes got wide. “Does this have to do with the fight?” He stood up and started pacing. “I thought we cleaned him up okay, but you’re here because he’s sick, aren’t you? I should’ve used more alcohol on those cuts, this is all my fault, he’s lying in a hospital bed somewhere and you’re asking about his salary because he needs help covering the medical bills and—”

“What? Davey, no, that’s not it at all.” Davey was so responsible and organized that Katherine often forgot that his reliability and maturity were driven by a strong undercurrent of anxiety. He wasn’t a fraidy-cat; he endured hardships without complaint and was as brave as anyone else in a fight. Uncertainty just threw him into a tailspin. Being so vague with Davey was a rookie mistake, and she kicked herself for upsetting him. She hastened to reassure him, saying, “Jack’s fine. I just need to know how much money he’s making because Specs said he was selling papers on Sundays to make ends meet, and that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Oh, right, sorry. That’s good. I’m glad he’s okay.” Davey plopped back down into the chair, slightly embarrassed. “And that’s kind of a personal question, Kath; I really think it’s something you should ask him, not me.”

Katherine practically growled with impatience. “I would, except I can’t ask him about it because we had a massive fight about money yesterday and he broke _up_ with me. Please, Davey, I swear I only need to know in order to help Jack.”

“Okay, okay. Just—don’t tell him I told you, alright?”

“I promise.”

“Thanks. Okay. He makes $1.25 a day. Not bad for a new hire with no schooling, right?”

“He _what_?” Katherine shot up out of her chair. “A dollar and twenty-five cents a _day_? Eight dollars and seventy-five cents for an _entire week_?”

“Yes,” Davey said slowly, stretching the word out into several syllables, trying to place the motives behind Katherine’s reaction. “Is that too much? Not enough? My father makes $1.75 as an experienced teamster, so I thought Jack was doing well for himself.”

Katherine was laughing hysterically now. “He was getting by on $1.25 a day for the last year? For the last year! And I never even noticed!” She composed herself with effort and then looked straight at Davey, her voice frighteningly calm. “Davey. The average newspaperman makes nearly four dollars a day in New York City. Even $3.25 is considered low wages.”

Davey’s mouth fell open. “I had no idea.” He leaned forward and covered his face in his hands. “I… I just had no idea, Kath. He came and asked my advice in negotiating his salary. Said they’d offered $1.10 a day, which was more money than he’d ever dreamed of, but he didn’t want to be taken for a chump. I told him to go to you, you’d know better, but he was ashamed. Said he couldn’t stand the idea of you being able to put a number on how poor he was.” Katherine snorted. “Yes, it’s ridiculous, but you know how he is.” Davey looked up at her, practically distraught. “I swear I tried everything to make him ask you instead of me, but he wouldn’t do it. So the two of us discussed how much higher he could ask for without being fired on the spot, and we went for $1.25.” Davey shook his head despondently. “I really thought it was a good salary—he’s only 18, he has no formal training, it’s his first desk job—” He sighed. “I just didn’t know.”

“It’s not your fault—it’s my father’s. When he sees a way to save a few pennies, he takes it, ethics be damned.”

“But that’s just it—I shoulda guessed Pulitzer would pull somethin’ like that, he’s… He’s a real skunk! …Sorry, I know he’s your pops.” Katherine shrugged. That was pretty tame, as far as insults went. She’d called her father far worse. “Jack trusted me ta help him, an’ I let him down.” The thick New York accent he’d work so hard to lose was creeping back in, the way it always did when his emotions got the better of him.

Katherine leaned over to grasp both of Davey’s hands. “You did the best you could with the knowledge you had; no one can expect more of themselves than that. So don’t you dare say you let Jack down, because you didn’t. You helped him negotiate for an extra fifteen cents a day—that’s huge. You are a true blue friend, David Jacobs, and don’t ever think any differently.”

Davey scrunched his eyes closed and took a few deep breaths. “Thanks. You’re right. Okay. But now that I know, I have to do something about it—I’ve got to tell Jack, and he’s got to head straight to payroll and get this fixed. I’ll go all the way to Pulitzer about this if I have to, I’ll drag the newsies with me, I’ll do whatever it takes to make this right.”

She squeezed his hands gently. “You’re forgetting you know someone who knows Joseph Pulitzer pretty well.” Katherine smiled. “After what Specs said, I thought something like this was probably going on, and I just needed to confirm it with you before heading off to fix it.” She stood up and grinned at Davey. “Hang on to your hat, Jacobs, because if things go my way, Jack will be getting a fair shake starting tomorrow.”

Davey laughed unsteadily. “If I were a betting man, I’d bet every last penny on things going your way.” He rose from his chair and headed with her to the door. “Let me walk you home, Kath, or at least far enough to catch a cab.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Just a second…” He turned to a coat rack by the side of the door and grabbed a dull brass key off one of the hooks. “ _Biz shpeter, Tateh_!” He called to his father. “I’ll be back soon, just making sure Katherine gets home okay.”

After saying her goodbyes to Mr. Jacobs, Katherine and Davey headed out into the night.

 

***

 

Jack blew out the lamp at his desk and took the stairs down to the lobby. After a night of sleeping in the office last night and a full day of work today, he was in no mood to talk to anyone, much less be stuck in a small elevator with them. What he needed was a good supper and a good night’s sleep, but a good supper wasn’t on the cards for him until Sunday, and a good night’s sleep might not be possible, either, not in this summer heat. He did love muggy New York nights, though, even if they made him wake up slick with sweat. There was something about the heat that made him feel as if the summer would last forever, as if he’d only imagined the bitter winter evenings when he and the other newsboys could barely call out the headlines through their chattering teeth.

Stepping out onto the sidewalk in front of the World Building, he closed his eyes, soaked in the heat, and felt the tension finally start to leave his body. The sun was setting over the Hudson River, painting the city with a languorous, seductive glow. If someone could turn that hazy orange into an oil or acrylic, he’d buy a thousand tubes of it. Removing his cap and wiping the sweat from his forehead, Jack looked out across City Hall Park. His gaze was caught by a couple walking arm in arm across the grass, their bodies pressed so closely together as to be bordering on scandalous. The man was looking down adoringly at the woman, his full attention devoted to her, and the woman was happily holding forth on an unknown topic, her face alight with the promise of young love.

Jack felt the weight of the long day settle back on his shoulders. He missed Katherine. He could only hope that she’d seen the drawing and taken it for what it was: an apology. What had he been thinking, ending a yearlong relationship in a two minute conversation where he hadn’t even let her have her fair say? He hadn’t let himself have his fair say, either, for that matter. Sure, he’d said a lot, but he hadn’t said all of the important things, he hadn’t told her about the papers and the money and his crippling fear of not being good enough, of her leaving him forever.

Rubbing his temples, he acknowledged that he hadn’t said those things to himself, either. He’d justified his actions by telling himself that he was saving both of them from more pain later on. He was sparing her from the continued hardships and embarrassments that came with dating someone like him, and he was shielding himself from the pain of yet another person pulling a disappearing act on him. That made him feel noble as long as he could keep up the charade, yes, but the façade was crumbling, and now he had to admit that he hadn’t been brave enough to tell himself the truth: Katherine could make her own decisions about what she wanted, and being with her, even temporarily, was worth any pain she caused him.

If only he’d said all of that on Sunday. Instead, he’d let his pride and his fear run roughshod over all of his other feelings. His affection for Katherine, his hope for the future, his determination to be something more than his parents had ever dreamed their son could be—none of it had mattered. It had been a blind sort of panic, of get out before she finds out you’re not worth it, get out while it’s still good, get out before your heart doesn’t belong to you anymore. He owed it to her to tell her all of this and to give her a chance to understand, because who knew, maybe she would. She was full of surprises, that Katherine Plumber, and he ought to know better than to underestimate her.

The ball was in her court now, though. All he could do was wait. Whistling softly, Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled home.

 

***

 

As soon as Katherine got back to the Pulitzers’ house, she marched straight to her father’s office and flung the door open without knocking.

He looked up from his work, startled, and pushed his glasses up a little higher on the bridge of his nose. “Katherine! What are you doing here? Have you come to apologize for your immature little display this morning?”

“No, Father. Actually, I’ve come to demand that you fix an immature little display of your own.”

Pulitzer capped his fountain pen and leaned back in his chair. “What bee have you got in your bonnet now, Katherine? Are you going to tell me that I have to send the maid home with sick pay because she has a sniffle? Are you going to insist that I forego my daily hard-boiled egg because I’m exploiting the hens?”

“No. You’re exploiting Jack Kelly.”

"By eating eggs?”

“Don’t play dumb.” Katherine walked right up to his desk, placed her palms on the edge, and leaned forward. “You know full well what I’m talking about—you’ve spent the last year paying your best illustrator less than a third of the salary you owe him, and that ends tonight.”

“My best illustrator? That’s a matter of opinion.” Pulitzer twirled his pen lazily.

“It’s really not, and you know it. Jack’s work gets more compliments from the readers than anyone else’s, and no one on staff has a better feel for movement and emotion than he does.”

“So he’s talented and his salary isn’t what it could be. I fail to see why you are interrupting my evening about that. The boy is a troublemaker and a gutter rat; he’s lucky to be employed at all. Furthermore, he is currently making more money than he has in his entire life, and he signed the contract of his own free will.”

“He signed it, but he wasn’t duly informed of what he was signing. I’m fairly certain that’s some sort of legal violation, and even if it isn’t, it’s certainly enough to cause a scandal.”

“Honestly, Katherine, you excel at making mountains out of molehills. I saw an opportunity to save my paper some money, and I took it. That’s just business. Besides, do you really think anyone is going to care about the salary of one low-born illustrator?”

“Have you forgotten that I’m a reporter?”

Pulitzer laughed. “A single man’s salary is not news. You have no weapons in this fight, Katherine, and I would advise you to tread lightly, because if you force my hand, I will blackball Jack at every other newsroom in this city.”

“Oh, I don’t think you will.” Katherine’s eyes flashed. “You see, I’m in the middle of writing an exposé about exploitative labor practices here in New York City, and my editor has already decided that it will be on the front page of this Sunday’s edition of _The Sun_.” She played idly with one of her curls. “I’d pitched it as a piece investigating the employers who trick newly arrived immigrants into signing unfair contracts and forcing them into dangerous, underpaid jobs, but I don’t see why I couldn’t expand it to include employers who exploit born-and-bred New Yorkers, as well.” Katherine smiled prettily. “Just think of _The Sun_ ’s circulation numbers when word gets out about such an exclusive scoop—they’ll be the only paper with all the juicy details on how newspaper titan Joseph Pulitzer is conning hardworking Americans out of their rightful earnings! I imagine all that press might be a bit of an embarrassment for you, Father, but like you said, I saw an opportunity to make my paper some money, and I’m going to take it.” She winked at him. “That’s just business.”

Pulitzer’s eyes narrowed. “What do you want, you impudent hoyden?”

“You raise Jack’s pay to four dollars a day, effective immediately.”

Pulitzer glared at Katherine and clenched his jaw so tightly that she could hear his teeth grind. “Done.”

Smelling blood in the water, she continued. “ _And_ you pay him back-pay for the last year. We’ll set that at, oh, let’s say that he should have been earning the average pressman’s salary, shall we? That’s really a bargain price for someone as gifted as Jack. Of course you do get credit for the money you’ve already paid him, so that puts your debt to him at a highly affordable…” She took a sheet of paper from his desk and scribbled some figures. “Nine-hundred and forty-two dollars, give or take a few cents.”

“Don’t push it, Katherine,” growled her father.

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it!” Katherine did an admirable job of feigning innocence. “But I must admit, I am a little bit worried about your reputation—depending on what the front page of _The Sun_ has to say about you on Sunday, it might look like you only raised Jack’s pay this week in an attempt to get ahead of the article, and you know how judgmental New York high society can be.” She shrugged. “Ah well, if you’re willing to risk your good name over less than a thousand dollars, who am I to gainsay you?”

Pulitzer yelled inarticulately and slammed both hands loudly on his desk. Katherine blinked but did not flinch. Father and daughter stared at each other for several moments before Pulitzer turned away. “Fine,” he barked. “I’ll do it.”

“Effective immediately.”

“Yes.”

“I have your word?”

“Yes.”

Katherine gave him a curt nod. “I’ll leave you to draw up the papers, then. Good night, Father.”

Pulitzer said nothing. He simply stared at the wall, glowering as he listened to the clip-clop of Katherine’s high-heeled boots on the parquet floor and the soft click as she closed the office door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three cheers for Katherine! I love when she gets the better of her father.
> 
> Some historical notes:  
> Low-end daily wages for a “pressman” in New York state in 1900 were $3.33 (the average was $3.83). This assumes an average 54-hour work week.  
> Also in 1900, teamsters made an average of $1.75 a day in New York state. They unionized in 1903. I decided to make Davey's father a teamster because I wanted to give him a non-unionized job in which he could tangle with a delivery truck, and that fit the bill.  
> Most Jewish immigrants to America around this time period came from Eastern Europe, settled in poorer areas of large cities, and spoke Yiddish; "Biz shpeter, Tateh" basically means "See you later, Dad." I would've added a little more Yiddish if I could have (it's such a fun language!), but all of the grammar books and extended dictionaries that I could find were written using the Hebrew alphabet, which I can't read, so I was limited to looking at transliterated lists of phrases. :/  
> Also, the historical Pulitzer doesn't seem to have been the complete baddie my story has made him out to be-- his obituary in the New York Times notes that he was an excellent reporter, he worked tirelessly to report stories about injustices, he wanted his papers to promote equality and democracy, he donated loads of money to charity, and he even established scholarships for poor kids who wanted to go to college to learn highly skilled jobs (lawyer, doctor, teacher, etc) but couldn't afford it. Sounds a lot like the Katherine character, I think.
> 
> Only two more chapters, so buckle up, kiddos!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack's circumstances change and Katherine is absent, although her influence is not.

“Kelly! Where’s the illustration for the Midtown mugging piece?”

Jack jumped. “Uh, I’m finishing it up right now, Mr. Nolan, gimme another ten minutes to get the shading right.”

Jack’s editor huffed with impatience. “Fine. Ten minutes, no more. We’ve got to get that page proofed and set as soon as possible,” he said, before moving on to badger another illustrator.

Jack sighed and looked at the blank page in front of him. Most days he ached to get to work, to disappear into a world where nothing existed beyond a sheet of brilliant white paper and the pen in his hand, but today he simply hadn’t been able to focus. He reached back into his pocket to rub his fingers across Katherine’s letter one more time. He’d worn the note’s crisp folds into a ragged fringe over the course of the day, but he was no closer to understanding Katherine’s meaning than he had been this morning, when he saw her note tucked into the collar of his shirt. He’d picked it up with reverence, thinking of Katherine’s slim hands writing these words to him in the warm, starlit night. He’d never told Katherine as much, but he loved it when she wrote him notes, seeing her looping, feminine cursive dancing recklessly across the page. He found it beautiful, even though it was hard for him to read. Katherine’s notes were all tucked under Jack’s pillow for the time being, but he’d called dibs on the next cigar box that Race finished off, and the way that kid smoked, Jack ought to be getting something to hold Katherine’s letters any day now.    

Jack had slipped the note into his pocket to read at work, rationing out the happiness of knowing that Katherine had come to visit, that Katherine had written words for him to read, that Katherine had left him a tangible piece of herself for him to keep forever. And while the contents of the note made him smile at first—she had forgiven him, it seemed, and that gave him hope—he hadn’t understood what she meant about Sunday mornings. Sunday morning was an even worse time for a date than Sunday afternoon; he’d lose the chance to sell any papers at all. So instead of drawing, Jack had spent most of the day dreading the prospect of either giving up another Sunday’s paper income or telling Katherine that he could barely keep his head above water on his illustrator’s salary. He knew what Crutchie and Davey would advise, but knowing the smart thing to do wasn’t the same thing as having the courage to do it.

He massaged the back of his neck, smearing ink across his skin and staining his collar. He was wearing blue today, a shade that Katherine called cornflower blue but that Jack preferred to think of as sharptooth sage, the same hue as a delicate wildflower in New Mexico. “Santa Fe woulda been simpler than all this,” he mumbled to himself, but he knew he didn’t really mean it.

“Kelly! Your ten minutes are up! Where’s the art?”

“Five more minutes, Mr. Nolan! It’s takin’ a little longer than I thought! Gotta get the scene just right, ya know, show the terror of it all, catch the reader’s eye,” said Jack, flashing the editor a winning smile.

Nolan rolled his eyes, and Jack bent his head to whip out a five-minute masterpiece. He’d just finished inking the villainous mugger (a blatant caricature of the drunkard who'd roughed Jack up on Sunday) when Mr. Simmons from payroll materialized at his elbow. Jack jerked in surprise, his pen nib splattering ink all across the sketch. He ground his teeth in frustration. Not for the first time, he wished that Simmons would move around the office like a normal person instead of simply appearing where he wasn’t expected to be.

“Mr. Kelly,” said the withered man, his voice dry like fallen leaves. “Please stop by my office tomorrow morning. I need to get your signature on a few things and go through some paperwork with you.”

“Of course, sir.” Jack watched Simmons wend his way through the crowded office before ripping up the ruined drawing and starting over. Somehow, he managed to sketch and ink another passable mugging illustration before Nolan circled back to yell at him again. Once he’d laid the picture on his editor’s desk, Jack decided that, like it or not, he had to come clean with Katherine. He had to tell her he couldn’t come on Sunday, and he had to tell her it was because he was still selling papes.

So, on his dinner break, he walked across City Hall Park to the stately building that housed _The Sun_. He took the stairs to the second floor and gave his most charming smile to the receptionist, who was clearly hoping that he would disappear and spare her the indignity of having to talk to such a rough-looking man. “Good evening, Miss. I needs to speak with Miss Katherine Plumber. Would you be able to tell me where she is, please?”

Taking in Jack’s black eye, the cut of his trousers, and his broad accent, she said, “She usually asks sources to meet her elsewhere. Are you sure you’re in the right place?”

“What? Oh, I’m not a source, I’m—I, uh,” he moved to clasp his hands behind his back, conscious of his battered knuckles. “I’m in the news business myself. I draws the illustrations over at _The World_.”

The secretary raised an eyebrow. “Do you.” Her voice was flat.

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do. An’ not that it’s any of your business, but Miss Plumber contacted me to discuss the illustrations for her upcomin’ investigative report, seein' as my work is of superior quality.” Jack stepped closer to the desk and crossed his arms so that the bruises, cuts, and ink stains on his hands were all impossible to miss. “Look, lady, I ain’t got the time to stick around an’ teach you manners, so just tell me—is Miss Plumber here or ain’t she?”

She sniffed. “Miss Plumber is not here at present. She’s out on assignment.”

“Fine. Which one’s her desk? I’ll leave her a message.”

“I’d be happy to pass a message along to her.”

“No thanks, I don’t trust ya ta remember. Just send me in the right direction an’ I’ll get outta your hair.”

The secretary pursed her lips in displeasure but pointed across the room. “Second desk from the left.”

Jack gave her a curt nod and headed over to Katherine’s desk. He shuffled through the messy stacks of papers that she’d left piled everywhere until he found a scratch sheet that he could use, and then he pulled a pencil stub from his pocket. Sinking into her dainty desk chair, he began writing in his painstaking draftsman’s hand. Each line was perfectly straight, each letter was perfectly spaced. A letter from Jack was practically a work of art in and of itself.

 

_Dear Ace,_

_Thank you for coming the other night. Specs said you stayed a while, too. Thanks. Sorry I missed you. That’s not the only thing I’m sorry for, but like you said, I want to tell you all that in person. Words are clumsy. Or I guess it’s more that I’m clumsy with words. But I can’t make it on Sunday. I have to sell papes that day so I have enough money to cover—well, just to cover things, is all. I know you thought I quit selling papes when I took the illustrator job, but I’ve kept selling papes every Sunday. I should have told you earlier, but I was embarrassed. We both know I’ll never be rich like your family, and that’s okay, but knowing that ~~ain’t~~ isn’t the same as looking at you and saying I don’t have the money to go to the symphony or buy a dessert or treat you to a day at Coney Island. Especially on account of how I want to do all of those things with you. But I can’t. So I just didn’t tell you. I should have, though. And I’m sorry. I hope you can see your way into forgiving me, but I’ll understand if you can’t. Anyway, the long and short of it is that I can’t meet you on Sundays, Ace. (Unless you want to become a newsie. Ha ha.) How about I pick you up from work on Monday for date night? (If you still want to call it a date after the rubbish I said on Sunday, then I would be stupid not to do the same.) I want you to tell me all about everything you couldn’t fit in your big article. You better believe I’ll be buying a copy of _ The Sun _this Sunday. I’ll always have the money for a front-page story by my Ace, the King of New York._

_Your Jack_

 

***

 

Jack stumbled blearily back to the Lodging House after work that night. He nearly tripped up the stairs, smashing his knee into a step as he lurched to catch himself from falling. He didn’t even try to stop himself from cursing at the pain, knowing the boys wouldn’t wake up at just one shout. After a long day of pounding the blisteringly hot pavement, they were so tired that they’d probably keep sleeping even if he marched an entire brass band through here.

He was surprised, then, when he looked up to the rooftop and saw that Crutchie was still awake. “Heya,” he said, pulling himself up the last rung of the ladder.

“Hey,” said the smaller boy, his legs dangling between the metal railings of the fire escape.

“Somethin’ wrong?”

“Naw, I just wanted ta check in on ya, make sure you was okay. Saw the bruises when I woke up this mornin’ but you was still asleep, so I couldn’t ask ya nothin’.”

“Aw, I’m fine, kiddo, don’t you worry ‘bout me. Tangled with a drunk, is all.” Voice brightening with a perverse pride, Jack gingerly removed his newsboy’s cap, saying, “Didja see the lump I got on my head?”

Crutchie whistled. “Wow, that’s a doozy! He really got ya good.”

“Mmm,” Jack said, moving to undo his bedroll. “Hey, Crutchie, what’s this?” Jack turned back to his friend, half a slice of buttered bread in his hand.

“Oh, right, that’s your dinner. Your stomach was rumblin’ mosta last night an’ you was sleep-talkin’ about roast chicken an’ mashed potatoes, so I saved ya somethin’ ta eat.” He smiled, his dimples visible even beneath the grit and grime of the streets. “It ain’t much, but it oughta be enough ta keep ya from wakin’ both of us up tonight.”

Jack thought about protesting, saying Crutchie needed it more than he did, a desk job wasn’t anywhere near as taxing as being a newsie, and besides, he wasn’t even hungry, but Crutchie knew Jack’s tells even better than Jack did. There was no way the older boy could fool his friend into swallowing that lie. And Jack really was famished. Mouth watering, he wolfed the bread down in two bites. “Thanks. You’re a real pal.”

“That’s what family’s for, ain’t it?”

“Sure is. We takes care of each other.” Jack leaned over to ruffle Crutchie’s hair. “An’ speakin’ of takin’ care, we both needs a good night’s sleep. You gots ta get up earlier than me, too, so you better hit the sack.”

Crutchie saluted. “Yessir, Cap’n Jack, sir.” He scooted away from the edge of the fire escape and rolled over onto his thin blanket.

Jack saluted back. “Don’t let them bedbugs bite, yeah? Smack ‘em if they do.”

Crutchie laughed. “I loves not havin’ to worry about bedbugs no more. I dunno how the fellas downstairs stand it.”

“Just one of the many perks of sleepin’ on a metal fire escape,” Jack said, folding his arms under his head and shifting around to find a comfortable angle. “G’night, Crutchie.”

“G’night, Jack.”

 

***

 

Jack had already exited the elevator on the 6th floor when he remembered that he was supposed to stop by the payroll office that morning, and so he grumped his way down three flights of stairs to see Mr. Simmons. The accountant was sitting ramrod straight at his desk, scanning the ledgers and jotting notes down in a cramped but neat script. 

“Good morning, sir.”

“Ah, Mr. Kelly,” he said, looking at Jack through his bifocals. “Do sit down. This shouldn’t take long, I just need to explain a few things and get your signature on some documents.”

“Right. So what’s this about?” Jack settled into the fancy cushioned chair and adjusted his newsboy’s cap.

“Well, it was brought to the organization’s attention that your salary was misstated on your original contract, and so we will be adjusting your wages to be commensurate with those of the other illustrators here.”

“Come in sure _what_? You ain’t dockin’ my pay, are ya? I works real hard—most days I gets here early and leaves late. I knows I ain’t the most respectable lookin’ fella on the floor, but I turns in good work, Mr. Simmons, just ask Mr. Nolan. I'm worth what ya pay me.”

“No, no, Mr. Kelly. I believe we’ve had a miscommunication. The organization is not docking your pay, it is increasing it.”

Jack blinked. “Oh, well, that’s alright, then. How much am I gettin’ now?”

Mr. Simmons squinted down through his glasses at the page in front of him. “Four dollars a day.”

“ _Four_ —are you havin’ me on, or what?” Jack sprang to his feet and shoved his chair back so roughly that it screeched across the wooden floorboards. “Lemme tell you, Simmons, this is a real cruel trick ta play, an’—”

“ _Mr. Kelly_. Please. This is not a joke; no one is –ahem- ‘having you on,’ as you say. In fact, here is the original directive about adjusting your salary, written by Mr. Pulitzer himself.” He pushed a sheet of paper across to Jack and gestured for the boy to read it.

Jack gave Simmons a wary look and then scanned the first few lines of the letter. “Classic Joe,” he muttered. “All them fancy words… just get ta tha point already…” And then he went rigid. Eyes wide, he slowly lifted his head to stare at Simmons. “Four dollars a day. Right there in black an’ white. I’m gettin’ paid four dollars a day.”

“Yes. Now would you please sit back down?”

Dazed, Jack dragged the chair back to the desk and lowered himself into it, moving as if he had aged eighty years in the last minute. “Four dollars a day…” he mumbled, placing a hand to his forehead.

“Yes, Mr. Kelly, four dollars a day. We have already established that. I would like to move on to the matter of back pay now, if that is amenable to you?”

Jack looked confused. “Back pay? What for?”

“As I said, there was a misprint in your original contract. You should have been employed at a daily wage of four dollars a day since you commenced working here, and so we are correcting that oversight now.” He passed Jack a typed document and a fountain pen. “This is the release form for your back pay. If you would sign, date, and initial here, here, and here, please?”

Jack looked as if he expected Spot Conlon and the Brooklyn boys to burst in at any minute yelling, ‘April Fool’s!’ But no, the room was silent, aside from the accountant’s quiet breathing and Jack’s own pounding heart. He flicked his eyes to Mr. Simmons’ face once more, scanning for any sign of ill-will or trickery. Trembling, he picked up the pen in his right hand and used the index finger of his left to help him read through the document. Then the pen clattered onto Simmons’ desk, and Jack began making choking noises as he struggled with the piece of gum that he’d sucked down his windpipe. The whispery accountant sat in shock, his professional demeanor finally broken by the sight of Jack hacking and coughing in front of him. After several seconds of unseemly gagging noises, Jack was back to breathing normally. Well, he was back to breathing, at any rate—his breaths were ragged, and his pulse was racing faster than if he’d just outrun a pack of enforcers from the Refuge.

Jack picked up the letter for a closer look, his hands shaking so rapidly that he could hardly read the words. “Have you read this, Mr. Simmons? Are you sure it’s right?”

“Yes, Mr. Kelly. Please, just sign it. I didn’t budget this much time for our meeting, and I really need to move on to other tasks.”

Jack ignored him. “Nine-hundred and fifty dollars? Are you absolutely certain?”

“It is my job to know every single figure that has even the slightest influence on the payroll of this organization. Of course I am absolutely certain. Now, please, sign the paper so that I can give you your money and continue with my day.” Jack didn’t move. Simmons sighed and said, “If it will help, I’ll obtain and send you a carbon paper copy of Mr. Pulitzer’s letter so that you can read and reread it at your leisure—at your own desk, not mine. Surely that will satisfy your misgivings?”

“Uh, yeah, that’d be swell,” Jack stammered. He picked the pen back up and swiftly signed, dated, and initialed his way through the document.

“Thank you, Mr. Kelly.” Simmons reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a fat manila envelope, which he placed in front of Jack. “Here you are. I appreciate your coming in to resolve this little matter.” He stood and guided Jack to the door of his office, where they shook hands. Jack’s grip was a little weaker than usual, but that was just as well, given the accountant’s delicate constitution.

Jack felt dizzy and more than a little drunk. Four dollars a day? Plus nine-hundred and fifty dollars in his hand right now? He was so certain that he was dreaming that he clapped his hands on top of his newsboy’s cap, yelping immediately as the tender bump on his head sent out a wave of pain. He was awake, then. Awake in some sort of alternate reality, though, because this couldn’t be true. This couldn’t happen to Lower Manhattan slum kid Jack Kelly, motherless at the age of five, orphan at the age of eight, wanted criminal by the age of eleven.

But then again, he wasn’t Lower Manhattan slum kid Jack Kelly anymore. No, he was successful strike leader Jack Kelly, former head of the Lower Manhattan Newsboys’ Union, full-time illustrator at _The World_ , brother to the most loyal newsies in the world, and boyfriend to the smartest, strongest, most delightfully exasperating woman he’d ever laid eyes on. This sort of thing could happen to the new Jack Kelly. And it just had.

 

***

 

Jack bounded into Jacobi’s that night like he’d won the lottery, which in a way he had. “Dinner for every newsie in here is on me tonight, folks! Spare no expense! Order the seltzer! Heck, order a beer if ya wants!” He was swiftly mobbed by a group of cheering boys, all of whom either clapped him on the back or shoulder but were careful to avoid his head—word had gotten out that he'd been clocked on the noggin. After several minutes of whooping and horseplay with Jack, the boys drifted back to the tables, debating the merits of ordering beef brisket or ruggelach or lamb stew or, wonder of wonders, _all_ of it.

Jack swaggered over to Davey and slapped a crisp dollar bill on the table. “Here’s ya money back. Thanks for the loan.”

Davey left the dollar on the table and gave Jack a quizzical look.

“I’m a big spender now, kid—yours truly makes four dollars a day from here on out, not ta mention havin’ a big fat pocket full o’ what the office’s fancypants accountant calls ‘back pay.’” Jack laughed. “Ya ever heard of such a thing? Back pay? I ain’t never heard of nobody trackin’ somebody down just to give ‘em money—the way I sees it, if ya don’t make sure ya gets paid on payday, ya ain’t never gonna get paid. These newspaper folks sure is strange.”

“Wow,” Davey said, shaking his head. “She did it.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “So you knows somethin’ about this.”

“What? I—”

“Oh, c’mon, Jacobs, we both knows you’s a terrible liar and that you’s good friends with Ace. This is her doin’, ain’t it?” Jack fixed his friend with a keen stare. Davey shifted nervously in his seat. Jack rolled his eyes and waved his hand. “Oh, go on, spill.”

Davey released the breath he’d been holding. “Okay, fine, yes, Katherine came by the other night and asked what your salary was because she thought something was up and it turns out Pulitzer had been cheating you for the last year and she said she’d fix it and I know you didn’t want her to know your wages but you know how hard it is to shake Katherine off a story and she’d already guessed the half of it and…” His voice squeaked. “Please don’t be mad at me?”

Jack punched Davey lightly in the shoulder. “I ain’t mad. You was just lookin’ out for me, an’ I appreciates that.” Signaling to Jacobi that they were ready to order, he turned back to Davey. “That Katherine Plumber is really somethin’, ain’t she.”

“Yes. Yes, she is. Hold on to her, Jack.”

“I aim to,” he said, his voice firm. “I’m gonna give that girl the best Sunday mornin’ she’s ever seen, just see if I don’t. An’ then,” he said, pulling out a five dollar bill to pay Jacobi for the newsies’ food, “I’m gonna be the best man for her that I can be. I swear.”

Davey smiled. “I know you will.” Having given Jacobi his order, he turned back to Jack. “Did you have time to read the paper today? I want to hear all about what you think of the free clinic they want to start over on Kenmare.”

Jack’s eyes lit up, and, as his words tumbled forth, the two boys settled in for a long night of conversation, food, and friendship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slight pause between updates-- this chapter is longer than any of the others, though, so hopefully that makes up for it!
> 
> The issues of _The Sun_ that I looked at (from the summer of 1900) had no illustrations aside from the ads-- my guess is that this was due to the fact that _The Sun_ was a serious newspaper, whereas _The World_ was more sensationalist and designed for mass appeal, but since Jack is lying about illustrating for _The Sun_ , anyway, I figured it was okay for him to say something like that.  
> Jack (at least as played by Jeremy Jordan in the musical) seems to always be chewing gum, which is period-appropriate-- the first commercial chewing gum was sold in the US in 1848. It was called The State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum, which sounds a little gross to me, but there you go. I guess spearmint and wintergreen don't sound all that good, either, now that I think about it.  
> Carbon paper was used as early as 1806.  
> Prior to 1845, all envelopes were handmade. In 1845, two British inventors applied for a patent for the first envelope-making machine, and manila folders (named for the hemp they were originally made from) were first used in the US Civil War, so I figured manila envelopes might have existed in 1900.  
> If you're someone who tracks these sorts of things (sometimes I am, sometimes I'm not), you might have noticed that in the last chapter, Katherine told her father to pay Jack $942 in back wages, not $950. But since the payroll fix didn't happen until Wednesday, Pulitzer owed Jack an extra $5.80, and I just decided to round up.  
> There was no legal drinking age in the US until 1934, so theoretically children and teenagers could have bought alcohol for themselves in 1900, although I bet that whether or not that was actually possible would depend on the town, the proprietor's views, and the kid in question.
> 
> We're down to the final chapter! Eek! Katherine and Jack will be seeing each other for the first time since Chapter 3-- will sparks fly? Will punches? Stay tuned... and, as always, thanks for reading/commenting/kudo-ing :)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack sleeps in on a Sunday morning and Katherine catches him at it.

Despite having stayed up late last night to get her article in on time, Katherine awoke before dawn on Sunday and made the long walk to Lower Manhattan. Even though Jack was almost certainly still asleep, so there was no way he would have seen her pull up in a cab or a carriage, she was determined to be more conscious about not spending money when she didn’t really need to. She could give the pennies she’d saved to St. Mark’s orphan ministry and use the long walk to draft her apology. The three-hour hike still might not be long enough to come up with anything coherent, though… she should probably circle Central Park a few times before heading to the Lower East Side. Apologies were not Katherine’s forte, and she knew it. Her mother had told her time and again to stop trying to use sarcasm to mend bridges when it was far more likely to burn them, but Katherine’s tongue would always be nimbler than her manners. Not this time, though. She would not lose Jack to a clever but inappropriate quip.

When Katherine arrived at the newsies’ lodging house, the boys were just heading out to the circulation office. They greeted her with friendly waves, high fives, and a few even stopped to give her a quick hug. Crutchie was one of the latter. “Atta girl, Katherine,” he said, beaming. “You’s a real peach, doin’ what ya did for Jack.”

She shrugged. “Well, if my father hadn’t been such a… skunk,” she said, recalling Davey’s choice of words, “It wouldn’t have needed doing in the first place. I’m just glad things are finally set to rights.”

“Me, too. Ya gonna go set your relationship to rights now, too, huh?”

Katherine blushed. “That’s my hope. Wish me luck!”

“Aw, ya don’t need luck, Jack’s been mopey all week on account of missin’ you somethin’ awful. You two have fun together—I’m off to go sell more papes than Race here,” he said, extending his crutch at just the right moment to make the passing newsboy stumble.

“You wish, Crutchie!” Race said, regaining his balance and socking his friend in the arm. “I aims ta be the top seller this week, an’ I’ll bet ya five cigars I makes it, too.”

“Done!” Crutchie and Race each spat in their hands and sealed the bet with a firm handshake. “See ya later, Ace!” Crutchie called as he and Race walked off together, laughing about an off-color joke Finch had made that morning. Katherine shook her head and smiled. She needed to stop by here more often; these irrepressible boys never failed to brighten her day.

Climbing up to Jack’s penthouse was always a bit of a chore for Katherine, given her many layers of petticoats and skirts, but it was worth it to reach the top of the ladder and find Jack still asleep. She drank in the sight of him bathed in the rosy light of dawn, his cheeks flushed and the hollow of his throat damp with sweat. His eyes were shadowed, one hand dangling off the fire escape and the other clutching his newsboy’s cap to his chest. His head was turned to one side, hair plastered to his forehead in the summer heat, grimy blanket bunched up underneath his bare feet. She clung to the top of the ladder for a minute, realizing that she’d never seen him in just his undershirt and trousers before. The sight of his bare arms made her breath hitch, and she started to wonder what he would look like without any shirt at all, his skin tanned from spending Sundays selling papers on the street, but… don’t go there, Katherine.

She took a deep breath to steady her nerves and allowed herself a moment to indulge in the secret pleasure of watching him sleep. Seeing him like this cracked her open in a way she hadn’t expected—he looked younger than his eighteen years, young and vulnerable and innocent in ways he’d never been allowed to be. Perhaps it was his stillness that caught her off guard. The Jack she knew was in constant motion; even when doing supposedly calm activities, such as drawing or painting, he was humming or whistling or bouncing his legs. Sleep stripped him of these protective distractions, revealing the premature worry lines on his forehead and peeling back the swagger he used to keep the world at bay.

She wouldn’t say that this version of Jack was the real Jack, exactly, but it was an important part of the real Jack, a part that he’d shown her only briefly up to now—in the tense moments after their first kiss, for a few short seconds when he clasped her hand to his chest as they were printing the paper for the Children’s Crusade, and that eyeblink in Riverside Park on Sunday when he’d asked her not to break his heart. She understood why he buried this Jack deep inside, covering him up beneath layers of anger and bravado, but she desperately wanted to help him feel safe enough to let this hidden side of himself surface now and again, catch a breath of the cool night air with Katherine, and lean his head against her chest and cry if he needed to. Heaven help her, but he was beautiful, this boy, and her heart ached with the fierce desire to protect him.

Slowly, carefully, she crawled across the fire escape, lying down next to him and nestling against his warm body. It was far too humid to curl up next to him, really; she could already feel perspiration prickling behind her knees and dampening her blouse. But after a week away from him, a week of fearing she’d lost him, she was desperate for his soft skin, his easy smile, the sight of him straightening his newsboy’s cap when he was nervous. The thought of moving even an inch from his side sparked a visceral pain in her gut, and so, heat be damned, she curled even closer against him, settling her head on his broad chest. He smelled of newsprint, sweat, and cloves, a heady scent that left her faint with longing. She felt his hot breath on her hair, listened to the gentle rhythm of his breathing, and, unable to resist any longer, she leaned in to kiss him on the collarbone. He stirred at her butterfly touch, and his eyes fluttered open, a hazel stormy with sleep and what looked suspiciously like desire. As his gaze cleared and his eyes focused on hers, she held her breath, uncertain what to expect. He shifted onto his side to face her and smiled, his movements languid and self-assured.

He kissed her softly on the forehead, the light pressure of his lips setting her skin on fire. “Hiya, Ace,” he mumbled, his voice muzzy and low. “Whatcha doin’ here?”

“I came to be a newsie,” she teased. “Like you said in your note. Since it’s Sunday morning and all.”

He reached over to stroke her hair, warm and burnished in the summer sun, and his eyes drifted gently closed. “Sunday morning, an’ I ain’t awake. You’re some kinda girl to make a miracle like that happen.”

She kissed him again, pressing her lips tenderly to the scar on his chin. “That I am, Jack Kelly,” she said. “But I’m also an idiot for not noticing sooner. And for not trying harder to understand that money isn’t something we can just gloss over. It’s something you and I are going to have to talk about and deal with.” She reached up to cradle the side of his face, carefully avoiding his bruised cheekbone. “It’s not fair of me to ask you to do expensive things if that makes you uncomfortable. And even though I don’t mind paying for both of us, it matters that you care, and that’s something we have to navigate together. As a couple. I don’t get to steamroll you just because my father is wealthy.” She took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, Jack, I—” her voice caught, and she dipped her head back towards his chest, resting where she could hear his steady heartbeat. “I just brushed your worries aside. I thought I knew best and that if I could just get you to do things my way then everything would sort itself out, and that’s… I was wrong. I was stubborn and wrong and I’m sorry. If you can forgive me, if you want to try again with me, I promise that I’ll do my best to listen more and—”

“Ace, shh, it’s okay, you don’t need to—”

“No, Jack, I do need to, this is one time I’m not going to listen to you because you need to listen to me and know that I mean it. I was wrong and I am sorry and even though the last thing I want is to hurt you, I made a royal mess of that, because I hurt you so deeply that you left.” Jack winced and shifted away from her. She frowned. “No, it’s true, and it needs to be said. I know that neither of us is very good at being… well, at talking about… you know, emotional stuff,” she said, picking up speed and screwing her eyes shut, “but I care for you, Jack Kelly. Deeply. I… When I think about the future, I’m not always sure where I’ll live or what I’ll be doing, but I’m always with you. In every future I want, every future I hope for, you’re there, right by my side. And if I ever give you any reason to doubt that, you need to tell me, because that means something’s gone wrong and we need to fix it.” She opened her eyes back up to see him looking back at her again, his eyes flicking hungrily from her eyes to her lips, his dark hair haloed by the rising sun. “Okay,” she said, feeling faint at the need in his eyes. “That’s… I think that’s all.”

His face was aglow with such passion and tenderness that she was suddenly desperate for his touch, and it was all she could do just to lie there, gazing at the boy who had snuck up on her and stolen her heart. He licked his lips nervously and spoke. “I guess it’s my turn, then. Of course I forgive you, Ace. An’ I hope you’ll forgive me, too. I made plenty of mistakes with you, an’ I’m sorry for every single one of ‘em.” He shifted uncomfortably and ran his hand through his hair, causing the damp strands in front to stick up at odd angles. “I shoulda told you what was goin’ on ‘stead of tryin’ ta hide it. I shoulda said something earlier ‘stead of bottlin’ it up until I burst. I shouldn’ta stormed off and left you without givin’ you a chance to talk—they’s two of us in this relationship, an’ that means we makes decisions together, not alone.” He reached towards her, hesitant, and relaxed a fraction of an inch when she reached back towards him, too. He brushed a lock of hair from her cheek and curled it around his fingers. “I wants us ta be a team, Ace, ‘cause we’s a good one. An’ I’m sorry I nearly ruined it by bein’ too proud to say what was botherin’ me. I ain’t gonna make that mistake again, though, so here goes.” He swallowed, hard, and she saw the muscles in his face tighten, but he kept talking. “I been left so many times, Ace. Ev’ryone I love disappears on me, even if they don’t means to. My ma, my da, the older newsies who was here when I was a tyke, an’ then when Crutchie got sent ta the Refuge I thought…” He shuddered and pulled her to him, so close that she could practically hear his thoughts forming. “It’s hard lettin’ people in, ya know? ‘Cause people can hurt ya a lot better when they’s got a spot in ya heart. An’ I thought... I thought if I left you first then it’d be easier. But it wasn’t.” His voice cracked, and his eyes had gone that dangerous pale green again. “It hurt, Ace. It hurt so damn much, leavin’ you.” He looked at her the way a drowning man looks at the shore, and the intensity of it left her struggling for air. He was breathing hard, too, with a ragged irregularity that underscored just how hard this was for him and just how much he wanted her to understand. “This week hurt so much that I realized I’d rather have the pain of you leavin’ me than the pain of me choosin’ to leave you.” He bit his lower lip and scanned her face, drawing strength from the warmth in her dark eyes. “I ain’t never gonna leave you again, Ace, so you’s stuck with me as long as you’ll have me.” He blushed slightly. “An’ I promise that from now on, I’ll tell ya things insteada makin’ ya ask Davey or Specs about ‘em. You’re a good investigative reporter, but ya shouldn’t hafta be one just ta figure out what I’m thinkin’.”

She smiled with such joy that he swallowed and wondered, yet again, how on earth he’d gotten so lucky. He saw his desire for her mirrored back at him in every line of her body, supple and sunkissed, and his heart started pounding so hard that he could hardly hear himself think. Katherine, her breath shallow and quick, slid her hands down his forearms and entwined her fingers with his, gently rubbing her thumbs across the backs of his work-worn hands. She felt him shudder with longing as she did so, and she reveled in the knowledge that he wanted her the way she wanted him. “I’ve got one last thing to tell you, you impossible boy, and then I’m going to need you to kiss this stupid grin off my face.” He quirked his lips in a half smile and arched one eyebrow. “Now listen up, and listen good. No one’s leaving or losing anybody around here, you got that? I’m yours, Jack Kelly.” She took a deep breath. “I am wholly, completely, irretrievably yours, and I always will be. You have all of me.” She looked up at him, her voice steady and earnest. “You have every last stubborn, passionate, reckless piece of me, all of my faults and all of my virtues, all of my head and all of my heart, for as long as you’ll have me and as long as you want me.” His lips had parted in anticipation of kissing her, the force of his gaze made her dizzy, and she clutched his hands even tighter to remind herself that this was real, that they were here, together, that she’d poured out her heart to him and he hadn’t run away. She pressed her hips flush against his, wanting to fill all of the gaps between them, to have and hold every part of this brave, broken boy. “I swear to you, Jack, as long as there is breath in my lungs, I will never, ever leave you, and you will never, ever lose me. I promise.” She looked straight at him to make sure he’d heard her, and then she grinned and motioned to his black eye. “I think you’ve done enough losing this week, anyway—I’m willing to bet you didn’t come out on top in that fight.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, we ain’t all as handy with our words as you is, Ace.”

“Or with our punches, apparently.”

“Shut up an’ kiss me,” he said, and Katherine, smiling so broadly that her cheeks hurt, happily obliged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END! TAH DAH!
> 
> No historical notes for this one, just a writing one-- as soon as I finished Chapter 1 I'd worked out the practicalities of how they were going to balance the money issue on date nights, but I couldn't fit it into this chapter! Argh. It would've made the dialogue too clunky. But I think that once they finished with the mushy stuff they'd have set up some ground rules for future dates, so here is what I decided would be "a compromise they could both live with" (I'm so clever... not :P ): Katherine uses her journalist’s salary to pay for date night activities 1 out of 4 weeks, Jack pays for another week every month, they alternate paying for the third, and the 4th week will be Katherine’s treat, courtesy of her father. A little bit regimented, sure, but this'll help them handle the money problem until they get better at actually sharing their feelings and putting aside their pride/stubbornness.
> 
> As always, thanks to all of you lovely people for reading, to you especially lovely people for kudo-ing, and to you extra lovely brilliant stellar gems of people out there for commenting. I hope you've enjoyed this flight of fancy as much as I have, and if you'd like to see more from me at some point, let me know! :) <3


End file.
